The woman suddenly broke into laughter, crazily, an echo of his own and turned away and disappeared, and the Master of Stair flung on his way with the sound of it in his ears. CHAPTER XV THE AVOWAL The afternoon service at Westminster Abbey had commenced; Delia Featherstonehaugh sat in the cloisters and listened to the lift of the singing. The place was yellow with the late sunshine; through the open arches glittered the untrodden snow under the faint blue of an English winter sky. Save for the sound of the organ and the half-muffled singing there was such silence that the whirr past of a bird became a notable thing. Delia gazed down the shadowy cloisters into their dimness, barred with the gold of the sunshine. She noted the slender stone ribbings rising perfectly to join like hands in prayer, somewhere in the mystery of the dark roof, and the Tudor roses each with its golden counterpart on the gray flagstone, and she sighed, for no reason save the stillness of it all. Close under her feet was the brass gravestone of a bishop, who had been dust for three hundred years; his Latin titles, shining in the sun, measured many paces; against the wall near by was a tablet to the memory of one three years dead, and this was all it bore beside her name: “Dear childe.” Faintly through the Abbey walls came the choir’s singing as disembodied, as grave as angels’; Delia’s hands slipped out of her muff and onto the stone beside her; her lips parted and her head sank back against the gray old wall; under her red coat her heart was heaving passionately. Suddenly the singing grew louder; she heard the first outburst of the Cantate Domino. “O sing unto the Lord a new song—for He hath done marvelous things.” She sat up and looked round; a man was entering the cloisters from the Abbey, as he closed the door behind him the singing sank again to faintness. Delia sat upright, motionless, looking toward the new-comer; it was Mr. Wedderburn. The cloister echoed to his firm footstep as he came toward her; his riding-cloak was over his arm; he swung his hat and whip in his hand; seeing her he gave a little start, then came on and halted, his figure between her and the winter sunlight: “Delia!” he said, and he half-smiled. She could find no words to answer him; she turned her face away and stared down at her own still hand. “You often come here?” he asked. “Yes.” He came nearer and leaned against the wall beside her easily, as if it were the most likely thing that they should have met thus. “I am on my way to ‘The Sleeping Queen,’” he said, “to see your brother—but I have time upon my hands.” She looked up at him; the sunshine touched his face and his plain dark attire. He smiled again. “Will you be sorry when I leave for France?” he said. The brown eyes widened. “Why do you ask?” she murmured faintly. “My faith—I wondered.”