I was prepared to see him keep a decorous distance from her. I
felt he was acting upon deliberation; that he was trusting to the
power of his insinuating address, his sophistry, to break down
barriers. It was as if he felt himself at greater advantage, making
no emotional demonstrations, so allaying her fears, giving her time
to think; for it was clear he hoped to master her intelligence, so
strong a part of her.

She sat down in the high-backed chair, and I noted that our
batteries began to play upon the town--an unusual thing at night.
It gave me a strange feeling--the perfect stillness of the holy
place, the quiet movement of this tragedy before me, on which
broke, with no modifying noises or turmoil, the shouting cannonade.
Nature, too, it would have seemed, had forged a mood in keeping
with the time, for there was no air stirring when we came in, and a
strange stillness had come upon the landscape. In the pause, too, I
heard a long, soft shuffling of feet in the corridor--the evening
procession from the chapel--and a slow chant:

"I am set down in a wilderness, O Lord, I am alone. If a strange
voice call, O teach me what to say; if I languish, O give me
Thy cup to drink; O strengthen Thou my soul. Lord, I am like a
sparrow far from home; O bring me to Thine honourable house.
Preserve my heart, encourage me, according to Thy truth."

The words came to us distinctly yet distantly, swelled softly,
and died away, leaving Alixe and Doltaire seated and looking at
each other. Alixe's hands were clasped in her lap.