He could not have gone far down the steep, when he was seen emerging upon the olive-shadowed plateau once more, and hastily stepping back across it and down the bank to the woman of mystery, who was evidently more surprised than pleased at this return. Saying something quickly, he took out the morocco case, and, after some reluctance and apparent objection on her part, placed it in her hands, pointed, to Ermengarde's horror, towards her hiding-place, again climbed the terrace bank, hurried across the path, and vanished down the steep; while Agatha, after a short pause, as of indecision, suddenly seemed to become resolute, put the case in her pocket, turned and dashed quickly, almost at a run, straight along the terrace towards Ermengarde, who gave herself up for lost. But before she could collect her senses sufficiently to decide whether to lie back and pretend to be asleep or get up and seem to be just emerging from the wood behind her, Agatha had flashed by like a whirlwind, her skirts brushing Ermengarde's feet, looking straight ahead and in too great a hurry to see what lay on the rosemary-bank behind the myrtle. Then Ermengarde, petrified with amazement, got up and went back to the path over the ridge, remembering that the way taken by the woman of mystery through the wood was shorter than the mule-track along the ridge, so that there was no fear, unless she went at a much greater rate than Agatha, of overtaking her and leading her to suppose that she had been in the olive-garden during the interview. She therefore walked slowly back along the mule-path, meditating upon the mysterious and nefarious proceedings of her young friend, and alternately blaming herself for watching the interview, and wondering what it meant, and congratulating herself on having accidentally been the witness of what justified her suspicions about that necklace, and reached the gate of the hotel just in time to see that same Agatha and Mr. Mosson coming out from a path on the wooded convent steep in earnest colloquy.