"Dear God," he prayed, "let not the guiltless suffer for my guilt. Punish me to the top of my sin, but pity Sicily."
Out of the shadow-land at the back of the altar emerged a white figure, with a fair face and hair the color of flame. She moved unheard across the pavement of the place of sanctuary; unheard she pushed open the little golden wicket in the golden railing; unheard she noted the white rose where it lay upon the ground, and, picking it up, lifted it to her lips before she placed it in her girdle; unheard she moved to where Robert lay in his agony before the altar.
Robert's consciousness awoke from its dark dreams. He rose and faced the girl, naming her name with joy.
"You have been abroad. Have you any news of my father?"
"He is still kept close in the palace; his sword is still idle. The King has doomed many to death, but it seems that none shall die until the fool dies--and they cannot find the fool," he added, with a grim laugh.
Perpetua looked at him with sad affection and said, earnestly, "I wish you would fly from Sicily."
Robert answered her as earnestly, "I wish you would fly from Sicily."
Perpetua, smiling, gently chided. "All men live in danger through each second of each minute. I do not know the color of fear."
Robert drew a little nearer to her and spoke with a warning voice.
"I fear for you. This morning I saw in the market-place one of the women of Lycabetta. She did not see me, but to see her renewed my fear. If danger should come here ring at this bell," and he pointed to the great rope on the column by the altar. "It was set here by King Robert the Good, that any man having cause of complaint against the King might ring it and rouse all Syracuse to sit in judgment between sovereign and subject. In all his reign no hand ever tugged at that cord."
Perpetua looked at it sadly. "Every hand in Syracuse might itch to clasp it in the reign of Robert the Bad."
There were tears in Robert's eyes as he echoed her.
"Robert the Bad. You might have loved him," he said, after a short silence.
Perpetua turned away, for now there were tears in her eyes. "Oh, I know nothing of love," she said.
Robert saw her sadness and combated his own to cheer her. "Is it not strange," he asked, "your loveliness knows nothing of love while my unloveliness is cunning in love-wisdom? Year in and year out I have watched the world a-wooing--shepherd and shepherdess under the hawthorn hedge, knight and dame in the rose-bower, king and queen on the marble terrace."