What De Gondomar's ulterior
designs were with him had not yet become manifest.
These perplexing thoughts swept through Sir Jocelyn's breast, as he
stood by the marble fountain, and listened to the sound of its falling
waters.
While thus occupied, he perceived two persons issue from the arched
entrance fronting the gate (adjoining the porter's lodge, in which the
prisoner was still detained), and make their way slowly across the
quadrangle, in the direction of the cloister on its eastern side, above
which were apartments assigned to the Secretary of State, Sir Thomas
Lake.
The foremost of the two was merely a yeoman of the guard, and would not
for a moment have attracted Sir Jocelyn's attention, if it had not been
for a female who accompanied him, and whom he was evidently conducting
to Sir Thomas Lake's rooms, as Sir Jocelyn not only saw the man point
towards them, but heard him mention the Secretary of State's name.
Something whispered him that this closely-hooded female,--the lower part
of whose face was shrouded in a muffler, so that the eyes alone were
visible,--was Aveline. Little could be discerned of the features; but
the exquisitely-proportioned figure, so simply yet so tastefully
arrayed, could only be hers; and if he _could_ have doubted that it was
Aveline, the suddenness with which her looks were averted as she beheld
him, and the quickness with which she stepped forward, so as even to
outstrip her companion--these circumstances, coupled with the violent
throbbing of his own heart, convinced him he was right.
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