To a man who had supped at White’s the night before, and knew his age to be the age des philosophes, it seemed the wildest fancy in the world.  And his distaste grew.  But to break off and leave her—­at any rate until he had put it beyond question that she had no underthought—­to break off and leave her after placing himself in a situation so humiliating, was too much for the pride of a Macaroni.  The lines of her head and figure too, half guessed and half revealed, and wholly light and graceful, had caught his fancy and created a desire to subjugate her.  Reluctantly, therefore, he continued to walk beside her, over Magdalen Bridge, and thence by a path which, skirting the city, ran across the low wooded meadows at the back of Merton.

A little to the right the squat tower of the college loomed against the lighter rack of clouds, and rising amid the dark lines of trees that beautify that part of the outskirts, formed a coup d’oeil sufficiently impressive.  Here and there, in such of the chamber windows as looked over the meadows, lights twinkled cheerfully; emboldened by which, yet avoiding their scope, pairs of lovers of the commoner class sneaked to and fro under the trees.  Whether the presence of these recalled early memories which Sir George’s fastidiousness found unpalatable, or he felt his fashion, smirched by the vulgarity of this Venus-walk, his impatience grew; and was not far from bursting forth when his guide turned sharply into an alley behind the cathedral, and, after threading a lane of mean houses, entered a small court.

The place, though poor and narrow, was not squalid.  Sir George could see so much by the light which shone from a window and fell on a group of five or six persons, who stood about the nearest door and talked in low, excited voices.  He had a good view of one man’s face, and read in it gloom and anger.  Then the group made way for the girl, eyeing her, as he thought, with pity and a sort of deference; and cursing the folly that had brought him into such a place and situation, wondering what on earth it all meant or in what it would end, he followed her into the house.

She opened a door on the right-hand side of the narrow passage, and led the way into a long, low room.  For a moment he saw no more than two lights on a distant table, and kneeling at a chair beside them a woman with grey dishevelled hair, who seemed to be praying, her face hidden.  Then his gaze, sinking instinctively, fell on a low bed between him and the woman; and there rested on a white sheet, and on the solemn outlines—­so certain in their rigidity, so unmistakable by human eyes—­of a body laid out for burial.

CHAPTER II

A MISADVENTURE