visits might compromise your father;
nor had I any pretext for returning so often but my own selfish pleasure
in his discourse; or so at least," he added in a lower voice, "I chose
to fancy--but when we met just now at the gate, if you acted a comedy,
believe me, I did not; and if I have come day after day to this house,
it is because, unknowingly, I came for you."

The words had escaped him unawares, and he was too sensible of their
untimeliness not to be prepared for the gesture with which she cut him
short.

"Oh," said she, in a tone of the liveliest reproach, "spare me this last
affront if you wish me to think the harm you have already done was done
unknowingly!"

Odo rose to his feet, tingling under the rebuke. "If respect and
admiration be an affront, madam," he said, "I cannot remain in your
presence without offending, and nothing is left me but to withdraw; but
before going I would at least ask if there is no way of repairing the
harm that my over-assiduity has caused."

She flushed high at the question. "Why, that," she said, "is in part, I
trust, already accomplished; indeed," she went on with an effort, "it
was when I learned the authorities suspected you of coming here on a
gallant adventure that I devised the idea of meeting you at the gate;
and for the rest, sir, the best reparation you can make is one that will
naturally suggest itself to a gentleman whose time must already be so
fully engaged."

And with that she made him a deep reverence, and withdrew to the inner
room.

2.5.

When the Professor's gate closed on Odo night was already falling and
the oil-lamp at the end of the arched passage-way shed its weak circle
of light on the pavement. This light, as Odo emerged, fell on a
retreating figure which resembled that of the blind beggar he had seen
crouching on the steps of the Corpus Domini. He ran forward, but the man
hurried across the little square and disappeared in the darkness. Odo
had not seen his face; but though his dress was tattered, and he leaned
on a beggar's staff, something about his broad rolling back recalled the
well-filled outline of Cantapresto's cassock.

Sick at heart, Odo rambled on from one street to another, avoiding the
more crowded quarters, and losing himself more than once in the
districts near the river, where young gentlemen of his figure seldom
showed themselves unattended. The populace, however, was all abroad, and
he passed as unregarded as though his somb