It was too late for him now to go into the Cathedral;
nothing but the fortress battlements were possible, and he hobbled
there, desiring to see the sunset from its superb elevation.
The gate-keeper, homely and simple, opened to him courteously, and he
went in to the first little courtyard, with its fig tree in the middle
and old grass-grown well surrounded by olives and lilac bushes; and then
he climbed the open stairs to the bastion, from whose battlements there
is to be obtained the most perfect view imaginable of the country, the
like of which Benozzo Gozzoli loved to paint.
It has not changed in the least since those days, except that the tiles
of the roofs, which are now dark gray with age, were then red and
brilliant. But the cypress trees still surround the monasteries, and the
high hills are still crowned with castellos, while the fields make a
patchwork of different crops of olives and vines and grain.
John Derringham mounted the stairs with his head down, musing bitterly,
so that, until he reached the top, he was not aware that a slender
girl's figure was seated upon the old stone bench which runs round the
wall.
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