The beggars were leisurely making their way to the cathedral doors, too lazy to make an earlier start, philosophically reflecting that the charitable are as likely to give after matins as before.
The Count went over the ground of the scene that he had witnessed in the fitful moonlight.

Here the man who might have been Francisco de Mogente had turned on his heel.

Here, at the never opened door of a deserted palace, he had stood for a moment fighting with his back to the wall.
Here he had fallen.

From that corner had come aid in the person--Sarrion was sure--of a friar.

It was an odd coincidence, for the Church had never been the friend of the exiled man, and it was in the days of a priest-ridden Queen that his foes had triumphed.
They had carried the stricken man back to the corner of the Calle San Gregorio and the Plazuela San Bruno, and from the movements of the bearers Sarrion had received the conviction that they had entered the house immediately beyond the angle of the high building opposite to the Episcopal Palace.
Sarrion followed his memory step by step.