Manguino was ill-at-ease over the love shown to Brook by his people, and there was another that could not climb out of the abyssal pit of her despair. Mercedes could not find merriment within herself. The beauty of this child was withered away from her, since that fortnight ago, when Manguino blessed her with his favour. She suffered greatly from her tortured soul and impregnated body. She had spent the most part of this evening alone in the gardens, in the back of the Blue Mansion. Although she was escorted to the Lord's house by her betrothed Hartford, she had left him for the comfort of the sedating gardens. Alone, she strolled the cobble pathways between the rows of hedge. She paced over the tiny wooden bridges that spanned the midget streams meandering about the entire estate. The party was picking up inside the mansion and there were a few betting with each other on whether, or not, the ArchBishop would attend. However, they soon forgot their bets as they became more intoxicated. Hartford was searching the mansion for his darling Mercedes, unaware that she was troubled. He thought that she was just playing with him, teasing him to find her. This wasn't the case, though. She was outside, under the stars, thinking and praying to God for strength. Mercedes was no longer walking. She had sat down on a wide marble bench outside the glass flower house. Here, with the moonlight beaming through the leaves of the trees over head, her face was modelled by the shadows thereof, and there occasionally glistened shiny tears that slid across her face like meteorites that flashed by in a starless midnight sky. She mourned for her loss. From a hanging terrace above her head, loomed a figure of a man, keeping himself in the phantom shadows, so that he could not be seen and still be able to watch whatever activity would be below. He observed the fair young woman below, and wondered who she was. Lloyd watched her ever since she first entered the garden and since the first moment, he heard her sobbing and crying, and rubbing her eyes. He wondered how such a pretty thing could be so miserable, and he felt ultimately inadequate by not being able to lend her assistance, or at least, his shoulder for her to cry on. He didn't know who this young woman was but he felt as close to her as he's ever felt to anyone. Somehow he empathized with her even though he didn't know what her troubles were. He felt miserable now. Several times he wanted to call out to her but he knew that if his presence was discovered there, by some coenobite, it would mean the end of his life, and it would mean great trouble to his host for harbouring a sinner. He thought to climb down the tree, by the terrace, and then approach her with his help, but his physical condition still prevented him from such over-exertions.