It was the cry of a small owl, which, in its plaintiveness and changelessness, had often seemed to Manisty and Eleanor the very voice of the Roman night.
Suddenly Mrs.Burgoyne said--'I have a different version of your Nemi story running in my head!--more tragic than yours.

My priest is no murderer.

He found his predecessor dead under the tree; the place was empty; he took it.
He won't escape his own doom, of course, but he has not deserved it.

There is no blood on his hand--his heart is pure.

There!--I imagine it so.' There was a curious tremor in her voice, which Manisty, lost in his own thoughts, did not detect.