They walked to the choir screen, passed through and sat at the back, a pew close to a window, somewhere they could see from and be seen. They had talked in practical terms on the way up from the inn. When he would come to the hospital, what of her things he should bring with him. She had asked if he had given Rizzo any money. He said he had not. In truth he had none to give until the draft came. “I’ll pay for my own eyes,” she had said, “though I trust it will not be more than seven pounds.”

Now they rested in the hush of the place. There had, presumably, been a matins, and there would, presumably, be something later, but for the moment the place was an unlit theatre and the few figures who came down from the nave were casual and hardly bothered to glance at them.

On the ceiling, the wooden ribs were studded with carved stone bosses. Lacroix described them for her, what he could see of them under their veilings of shadow. Bishops, saints, a white hart, a white rose. A thistle. She said she liked thistles.

“Better than roses?” he asked.

She didn’t reply. She had shut her eyes and appeared to have withdrawn completely, though when the window beside them suddenly brightened—the end of the rain shower—she was aware of it, the swell of coloured light, and she smiled.

“I don’t object to religion,” she said, “when it’s human.”

“Yes,” he said, unsure if he had heard her rightly but sufficiently used to her flights to suspect that he had. He looked at her, the settled profile of her face, and thought of the inn where now all rooms were surely free, all beds. It was not too late—and Rizzo might be relieved. Next to the horror of having a knife in your eye must be the horror of being the one who wielded it. They would walk back to the Trongate, they would take a room, they would lie down together. After all, you did not need eyes for any of that. And when they were done they would rise up like the king and queen of the day. He called to her, silently, told himself that if his calling woke her, if she were suddenly to look at him . . .