“Only this.” He spoke quickly, with a certain mastery. “If by to-morrow I have not changed my mind, shall you accept my offer?” She raised her brows slightly. “Why do you ask me that?” “Because I want to know what to expect. I want to know if you make that condition for your sake or mine.” Unhesitatingly he went to the point. He was very nearly sure of her, but still not quite. She paused for some seconds before she answered him. He wondered if she were seeking a means of escape. Then very calmly she gave him her reply, and he knew that the game was his. “I have said it was for both, because if you repent of the bargain, so shall I. But—if you do not repent, then I shall accept your offer with gratitude. But you have acted upon impulse, and I think you ought to take time to consider.” “It rests with me then?” said Rotherby. “Yes, it rests with you.” Quietly, even coldly, she yielded the point. “Of course, as you say, if you decide to take me, it will only be on trial. And if I fail to satisfy you, we are not worse off than we are at present. But please do not decide before to-morrow!” The words were a request. The tone was almost a command. He could ignore neither, and he swept her a deep bow. “Madam, your wishes in this matter shall be respected. To-morrow then—we decide!” “Thank you,” said Frances quietly. She turned to go, but suddenly stopped short. He was aware of a change in her—a tremor of agitation. “Ah!” she said, under her breath. She was looking out of the shadow into the moonlight, and swiftly his eyes followed hers. A figure in black was walking slowly and quite noiselessly over the grass by the side of the path. “Who on earth—” began Montague. She silenced him with a rapid gesture. “Hush! It is the Bishop!” He reflected later that from her point of view it might have been wiser to have ignored the warning and have gone forth openly to meet the advancing intruder. But—perhaps it was the romance of the hour, perhaps merely her impulse communicating itself to him—or even, it might have been some deeper motive, barely acknowledged as yet that actuated him—whatever the influence at work, he obeyed her, drawing back in silence against the trunk of the yew tree. And so, like two conspirators trapped in that haunted garden, they drew close together in the depth of the shadow and dumbly watched the black-gowned figure advance over the moonlit grass. CHAPTER IV THE ACCUSER He came very slowly, with priest-like dignity, yet in his deliberation of movement there was purpose. It was seldom that the Bishop of Burminster performed any action without a definite end in view. There was indeed something almost fatalistic in all that he did. The wandering friar himself who was said to haunt that sleeping garden could not have moved with greater assurance or more studied detachment of pose.