It did not occur to him that to get
into the Emperor's gardens by stealth might be looked upon as a serious
matter. In a few moments he had reached the end and was getting back to
the land on the other side.
From the water's edge three little terraces led up like steps to the
level of the garden, where the trees grew thick and dark; and, although
it was early autumn, each terrace was covered with flowers of a
different hue--pink and soft yellow and pale blue. Gilbert had never
seen anything made to grow in such orderly profusion, and when he
reached the top by narrow steps built against the wall, he found
himself treading on a fine white gravel surface on which not even a
single dead leaf had been allowed to lie, and which extended some
thirty yards inwards under the trees to a straight bank of moss that
had a sheen like green velvet where the sun fell upon it through the
parted leaves overhead. Very far away between the trunks of the trees
there was the gleam of white marble walls.
Gilbert hesitated a little, and then walked slowly forward toward the
bank. As yet he had seen no trace of any living thing in the garden,
but as he advanced and changed his position, he noticed a small dash of
colour, like the corner of a dark blue cloak, beside the trunk of one
of the larger trees. Some one was sitting on the other side, and he
moved cautiously and almost noiselessly till he saw that the person was
a lady, seated on the ground and absorbed in a book. He did not
remember to have seen more than two or three women reading in all his
life, and one of them was Queen Eleanor; another was Beatrix, who, as a
lonely child in the solitude of her father's castle, had acquired some
learning from the chaplain, and delighted in spelling out the few
manuscripts in her father's possession.
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