Page:The Saint (1906, G. P. Putnam's Sons).djvu/57

Rh home. Her voice really sounded different, but Carlino could not believe she was afraid. Afraid of what? Did she not see there before them only a few steps away, the lights of the Grande Place? Moreover he knew the man, and was going to put him into his book. He was the brother of the swan-necked Edith, a spirit of darkness, condemned to wander at night in the streets of Bruges, as a penance for having attempted to seduce St. Gunhild, sister of King Harold. Each time that Carlino had ventured at night into the more lonely parts of Bruges he had seen this sinister figure, wandering, as it seemed, aimlessly.

"That is a nice way to reassure people," said Noemi.

Carlino shrugged his shoulders, and declared the meeting to have been most fortunate, since it had suggested the name of Gunhild for his heroine, Noemi being that of a mother-in-law.

In the black shadow of the enormous Halles, towering on the right of the street, the sinister-looking man, who had retraced his steps, almost brushed Jeanne's side in passing, and this time she really shuddered. At this moment, however, the innumerable bells rang out amid the clouds above her head.

She pressed Noemi's arm convulsively without speaking. In silence they crossed the square. Carlino directed them to take a lonely street on the left, brightly illumined by the moon, which