Transcriber’s Note:

The cover image was created by the transcriber and is placed in the public domain.

JEWEL SOWERS

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JEWEL SOWERS
A Novel

LONDON

GREENING & CO., LTD.

20, CECIL COURT, CHARING CROSS ROAD, W.C.

1903

CONTENTS

JEWEL SOWERS

CHAPTER I
AN INTRODUCTION TO LUCIFRAM

In the little planet Lucifram, that spun a brilliant and solitary course among the stars, exchanging annual salutations with them as the waxing and waning of the solar laws brought them out of the void and within hail, the people each and all walked upside down. The trees were upside down, the houses, the churches with their steeples, the palaces, the oceans, rivers, lakes, mountains, animals, and fishes, each and all, reversed our own conception of mundane propriety. Cultivate a patience with the seeming strangeness of this extraordinary planet, even to the reading of this simple book, and let that virtue lead you nearer to another sphere, more to your liking.

There were a few, indeed, upon this sphere who did their best to stand upon their feet. Sometimes they succeeded; but others were bowled down in the struggle and ended by standing once again upon their heads, or lying crushed, paying the debt they owed to Outraged Custom.

The circumference of this sphere was something like two thousand miles. It bulged out towards the north and south, with giant hollows to the east and west. And because everything that existed was contrary to our idea of things, all things looked normal.

When Nature and architecture combine to alter things, making them contrariwise, as people call it, what wonder if morality and all ethics blend with the custom?

To begin with governments and kingships. Unlike those upon a two-legged basis, a king was never chosen for his worth, but for his frailties. He was chosen to strew the path of his subjects with flowers which all might pick like little children out at play, and then would quarrel over.

Alas! To be a king in the planet Lucifram! That little planet topsy-turvy. Here, though a ruler might have the will of a Hercules to turn a somersalt and land upon his feet, some diviner instinct calling him to that, the pigmies around him pinned him with millions of tiny threads, an anchorage whereby to hold his head safe to the ground. Threads worked in gold! Held for the wonder of the multitude.

So for the kings. The Gods of all the stars looked down on them. They heard those faint sighs of weakness—those breathings after higher things—and pitied some, and smiled at others. And though in the topsy-turvy synagogues and churches the people prayed for them, no prayers reached heaven except those simple few the kings themselves breathed in solitude. Prayers that must travel very, very far, as all prayers must, and which needed the giant strength of great simplicity to bring them to the end of their weary journey.

So for the kings and princes. An arduous task is theirs—bound thus with chains—God only knows how hard! As each insidious little link might whisper, telling its own small share in the universal tale.

In our world we always speak of “Church and State”—a correct and steady way of speaking—but in Lucifram ’tis always “State and Church,” and that is why the palaces and kings claimed our attention first.

The Church, composed of temples, synagogues, and priests, jumbled together in luxurious profusion, was dressed and bedecked so finely that the God the people worshipped fell almost out of sight. In their chief temple, in the greatest city, was a three-tailed golden Serpent, coiled around a golden pole above a table decked in red, and set with incense vessels. Dim and mysterious was that holy place, where priests, all flowing and bedecked in golden garments, came each day to bow before the Snake. Its three tails, the gold of them burnished like fire, spread out like fans on high, against a background of mosaic. Below, resting on the altar, was the great head, lying quite still; the genius of ages worked in its cruel fangs and awful eyes. Eyes never closing, jewel-glinting, green and fiery, all-surveying, all-watching. Those terrible eyes lit up the gloom, and compelled men to stand upon their heads as it itself was forced to do. For by the grim and dreadful fascination of those never-closing eyes, unconsciously the worshippers changed to position like to it, tails up, heads down, blinded by their religion.

In this temple the people sat in the big gloomy aisles, each on a little chair with a ledge in front for kneeling, and heard the priest from the pulpit, and the reader from his desk. Awed by the grandeur and the solemn dimness, they bowed and salaamed before the triune tails, hidden from the vulgar gaze by a red silk curtain blazoned in gold. And when the mighty organ rolled and rumbled, and the angel voices of the choir boys rang through the gold-washed rafters, their senses were stirred by some far hidden mystery, and their eyes would dim or kindle as they felt it; only the gleaming eyes within the veil remained unchanged.

Now it was customary for the priests who waited on the Serpent to fast a day each month and marry only once. A layman in Lucifram might wed twice. No priests could marry under forty. For laymen, the age was twenty-five for the first attempt, and forty for the second; that is, for the few who preferred company in their latter years to peace. But though the women, by Act of Parliament, enjoyed the privilege of marrying twice, just as the men did, there were certain things clearly beyond them, they being in Lucifram, as here, the weaker vessels. On those great days whereon the priest drew back the silken curtain and displayed the Serpent, all women were debarred from entering the temple.

And so enough for an explanation and a prologue. Take my hand, descend, and tread on Lucifram!

CHAPTER II
FRIEND AND EXECUTOR

In the capital of Lucifram there is a great park—a city park—planted with trees sown centuries since by the restless winds, when all was peaceful country. To the right stretches the city—work and pleasure, laughter and tears, and perpetual hurry-scurry. All round the park sounds and sights of human life, condensed within a curiously small circle, were in evidence. Silent streets, tall and shadowy, lit by occasional gas lamps, fringed on a brilliant thoroughfare, with omnibuses, cabs, and people hurrying everywhere. Most spacious squares, with fountains and statues, backed by huge buildings, erected both for grace and durability, lay on all sides. The mansions on this side of the park were in many cases of plain exterior. This gave the lie to the magnificence within. On the right side of the park, facing it and running along its entire length, was built the famous Greensward Avenue.

In the centre of the avenue, standing back under the shadow of the high walls of two palace gardens rising on either side, stood a large square house built of black marble. It was built in black, and the blinds were of deep red, the only colour to relieve it. Those were not visible till night came. Thirteen imposing-looking steps lead up to an imposing door, in black polished oak, rarely carved. Two narrow windows in the wall reached down on each side of it. The house consisted of three storeys and a basement, and to the back were pretty and extensive gardens protected by high walls.

The owner of this house was a certain Camille Barringcourt, who had but lately come there, within the last three years. With the exception of servants, he lived quite alone—a bachelor in the land of double marriages.

Now the house in which he lived was very appropriately called “Marble House.” It had been built by a millionaire quite recently, despite its old appearance. The reason why it had such an appearance of age was because it had been erected from a spoiled cathedral in the remotest corner of Lucifram, where instead of worshipping the Serpent they worshipped the Toad. It had cost a vast amount of money to cart the marble and oak right over from east to west, but it was done right royally, and the house itself, from this point of view at least, was very interesting. No sooner was the great mansion completed, and royalty entertained on one single occasion, than the millionaire died. Men and women agreed on this, that his death was at least mysterious. He was found dead in bed. So far as the doctors could tell he suffered from nothing, and had come by no foul play. He had died painlessly, in the big plain bed-chamber containing little else but the desecrated altar of the Toad, with a fac-simile of the Serpent rising above it—a shrine which all good people in Lucifram kept in their private rooms. And so he was buried, and the ladies mourned. He had been generous. And then his will was read.

All his vast wealth was given to charities; all went to charity except the house. That was left “To my friend, Camille Barringcourt, as a slight token of esteem, and in remembrance of the past.” That was all. No one had ever heard or seen anything of this friend, and no one knew anything of the past. But lawyers, like detectives, have a way of hunting people up. In a little time it was spread abroad that Camille Barringcourt lived in Fairysky, or at least was staying there, a country which much resembled Italy on the Earth.

It may also be mentioned here that Camille Barringcourt and the lawyer were left executors of those vast charities.

The first thing about the new-comer’s arrival that excited general interest was the advent of six horses. All were black as night, with long tails, fiery eyes, shining coats, and tossing, untamed heads.

Nearly all the little boys in that aristocratic neighbourhood were late for school that morning; or better, never went. Accustomed as they were to beautiful horses, they had never even in their experience seen anything to equal these. The six black horses travelled through the crowded thoroughfares singly led, each by a groom. Their trappings were of a deep red, and no unnecessary weight was placed upon them. The men who led the animals were men who understood their business, and had great patience with their coquettish, curvetting ways. Just as the journey was drawing to a close the traffic in the streets was for the minute stopped. Five of the six horses had passed the crossing, and the last was drawn up close to Lady Flamington’s carriage. Whether it was her ladyship’s hat (she was one of the best dressed and most beautiful women of the day), or whether her two thoroughbreds were ready to enter into the fun of the thing, and dance a lively impromptu pirouette with the new arrival, it would be hard to say. However, the black steed began a dance, anything but safe in the state of the crowded thoroughfare, and the bays in harness did their best to follow suit. It was a spirited attempt; then the groom for once lost his temper.

“Get up, you devil!” said he. The horse took him literally and reared up, despite his efforts to keep it down, dragging him with it, in its wild, untamable fury. The trampling forepaws struck on the cushions of my lady’s brougham. What might have been the result it is impossible to say, for her escape on the other side was cut off by a huge lorry drawn up against her like a wall, but just at that moment a voice fell on the hubbub and the consternation, and the “voice that breathed o’er Eden” on the day of her marriage had never been so welcome to Lady Flamington as that one now. At the same time a hand, the whitest, the most beautiful she had ever seen (so she told her friends after), grasped at the bridle.

“Waugh-o, Starlight—Starlight! Come, then.”

The words, the tone, the caressing hand on one side, the firm hand on the bridle, were too much for the four-legged beauty. Won over by more words, more pressure on the hateful bit (even though silver), and more caressing patting on her glossy neck, she came gracefully down to earth once more.

It seemed to Lady Flamington that the stranger had sprung up from nowhere. As a matter of fact, he had sprung from the hansom behind, in which he was following, at almost walking pace, these six prancing treasures. Then just as the traffic was starting again he looked across at her.

“You are not hurt,” said he. “I should have been bitterly sorry if that had happened.”

For once her ladyship could find no words. She bowed, he raised his hat, the procession moved along. Then she knitted her brows thoughtfully.

“He should have been sorry in either case,” she thought, and fell to studying his face in her memory.

Meanwhile the six black horses had turned into Greensward Avenue, where likewise at a quicker rate her ladyship’s carriage was progressing.

All the way to the spacious private stables at the rear of the private grounds, Mr. Barringcourt, for it was he, led that most spoiled of all spoilt animals, Starlight. The little boys followed admiringly, till the big doors of the stable-yard closed cruelly upon them.

“That looks like a dook turned undertaker,” said one.

Rumour had spread a report that Camille Barringcourt was a twice married gentleman, with a large family.

“How unlike poor Geoffrey Todbrook,” said the ladies, and sighed.

But rumour for once was entirely wrong. One bachelor was dead; another succeeded him.

The new arrival settled quickly into his new home. Seeing it was already furnished, that was but natural. His servants were all foreigners, dark, tall, all very unlike the people on this side of Lucifram. Yet there was an inexpressible charm, dignity, and quiet repose about them that delighted and mystified everyone. Among them were some women, parlourmaids, sewing-maids, and housemaids apparently.

Each one of these servants, men and women, dressed in black, faced with deep red. It was a kind of uniform.

Now, a few words are needed as to the personal appearance of the Master himself. In figure he was tall, athletic, graceful, broad-shouldered. His hair was black and short, crisp at the ends, as Lady Flamington noticed when he removed his hat. People called his face “odd.” It was dark and swarthy, with a strong forehead, and black eyes which were gloomy and deeply set. The nose was straight, bearing in its lines more sensitive refinement than any other feature of his face.

When he smiled he showed, though not obtrusively, a sparkle of white and even teeth. When Lady Flamington admired the beauty of his hands she was within the right. For strength and suppleness they would be hard to beat, and for whiteness also. This then, in short, was the figure of Camille Barringcourt, come to dispense the charity of his friend of the past; come to settle in Marble House, of Greensward Avenue.

Lady Flamington, some dozen houses off, persuaded her first and only husband to call there, soon after the arrival. He did so, hoping to see the fine black horses she had spoken of. Horseflesh was his hobby. He saw the gentleman, but nothing else in the way of interest, took a sudden fancy to him, and invited him over to dinner on Friday night. The invitation was as suddenly accepted. Sir James went home with some misgivings. He didn’t know whether his wife liked swarthy men; she was fastidious. His wife had no objection to them. She was delighted to welcome any of his friends, except turf acquaintances and bookmakers.

On Friday night Mr. Barringcourt came. It was a little formal affair, one or two of the family circle and an intimate friend. The stranger sat beside his hostess for dinner, and they talked commonplaces. At last she turned to him with a pretty grace.

“You have not yet demanded my thanks,” said she.

“For what?” he asked.

“You know for what.”

“Your thanks would necessitate my apologies.”

“I am surprised you never offered them.”

“It was unnecessary.”

“There I must confess to some curiosity. Do you remember you said to me, ‘You are not hurt.’”

“Well?” said he, and smiled—a smile all the more charming as he bent his head to hers.

“Well!” she retorted. “I was hurt; your horse frightened me. To be frightened is to be hurt. Can you dispute it?”

“I never saw anyone stand pain better. Your face was a vision of—of—”

“Of what?” she asked.

“I do not understand your language very well, as yet. I shall improve in it; you must be patient. In a week or two I shall have found the word I need.”

“And till then?”

“Learn to be gracious to a poor speaker.”

“Ah! But I do not intend to let you off so easily. After telling me I was not hurt, you next proceeded to say, ‘In that case you would have been deeply sorry’—you see my memory is good. Now, am I to understand that under the circumstances you felt no sorrow?”

“Most certainly.”

“Now we shall quarrel, unless you can explain yourself.”

“Is it necessary?”

“You shall discover how much so if you do not explain your meaning instantly.”

“Then do not blame me if I sink still deeper into the mire. Under the circumstances, I was not sorry. I had been told on coming to this country I should find all the women forward—most of them ugly—the remainder plain. After three days’ looking round me I had come to the same conclusion. Suddenly by the merest chance my eyes lighted on you. Can you wonder I should feel no sorrow?”

She frowned, then laughed, and looked at him.

“Where did you learn this grossest form of flattery?”

“I see your ladyship has no education to appreciate the truth.”

“Talk to my husband about horses. I have no more to say to you.”

“Is he a lover of horses?”

“Yes. He attends every Race Meet in the county.”

Mr. Barringcourt smiled. “That speaks for itself,” he said.

CHAPTER III
ROSALIE

Let us pay a call on Cinderella.

Alas! not a Cinderella with a prince and gorgeous clothing, but one without a tongue, or rather, tongue-tied.

Rosalie Paleaf, for that was her name, lived alone with an aunt and uncle. Both her parents were dead. She was pretty, of that fair delicate type called “picturesque.” Her hair was of a palish yellow tint, glossy, but straight; her skin was fair and delicate. The eyes were grey, with dark curling lashes, and delicately marked brows. Her nose turned up just the least little bit, the most charming upward, delicate little curve in the wrong direction it would be possible to meet. The corners of her mouth, however, turned down with the saddest, most wistful droop imaginable. In fact, there was only one feature in her face that kept it from becoming most woefully pathetic, and that was the little, inquisitive, life-enjoying nose. To come back to her eyes for finishing touches. Their greyness was very pale. The pupils generally were large, with an equally black rim along the edge of the iris. Inside this rim the colour gradually paled to the pupil, which gave her eyes a curiously bright appearance. And then being tongue-tied! She had nothing she could talk with but her eyes, and so she used them.

Uncle and aunt were very kind to her. Who indeed could help being that? She was the gentlest, kindest creature, harmless and very helpless, with the sweetest face, the happiest manner, and sunniest smile upon occasions.

They were people of moderate circumstances in a very quiet way, and if Rosalie had not the hardest work of the house to do, it was because her aunt always insisted on doing it, with the help of an occasional charwoman. And so, when very young, she learnt to hem, and dust, and do the toasting. Later she got promoted to wiping tea-things, then dinner dishes, and ended as a fully-fledged young housekeeper, ready to bake and cook, darn, and make and mend, to sweep and dust, and do all work that is useful.

Beyond this her education had not progressed. She could read and write, ’tis certain, but very little more. Accomplishments were beyond the means of her relations, and had they not been it would never have struck them a child apparently quite dumb should need such things. So she stayed at home and was happy, except in the company of strangers, when her sad defect made itself felt under their pitying glances of surprise, however well they might try to conceal them.

But a child’s happiness often constitutes a woman’s misery. As the years passed by Rosalie began to feel her loneliness, her utter incapacity for the work of the world. She felt also something deeper, stronger, more unwordable. It was more real than anything else in her life, yet, because unseen, it was unsympathised with as having no existence. And so, although her happiness was gradually becoming overshadowed, she never fully recognised it till one October evening when she had turned twenty.

To look at Rosalie the spectator would never have taken her for that age. All her life had been spent in one long silent dream—the privilege of childhood.

It was the kind of autumn evening made for thought and sadness. The sky was very clear, with a suspicion of purple in it, and the gold of ages was in the west. As she stood by her bedroom window looking out at it, there came that terrible foreboding of sadness and sorrow that seems to do its best to crush young hearts, though perhaps it only moulds them.

And along with it came a longing for expansion, a weariness of the endless routine, the companionless silence and that nameless thirst after something, she knew not what. How could Rosalie, walking in the mist, having no speech or utterance, explain it even to herself? She wanted something, the purple of the sky suggested something—suggested, nothing more. And from that day forward the nameless longing grew, settling itself within her heart, finding no happier outside quarters. I do not know that she looked thinner or more frail, her physical strength was too great for that. No one beyond herself knew of the longing, and she attributed it all to discontent, and tried to stifle it.

At last one evening she understood. The inordinate longing for speech rushed over her.

But how to manage it? It is all very well to find out what you want to do—but how to do it? There was only one way—only one way, at any rate, that suggested itself to her, and that way was prayer.

Now, her religious education had not been exactly neglected, but Rosalie was one of those heedless creatures who hear a little and invent a great deal.

She had been told with great piety by her aunt of the great golden Serpent, its wonderful power, its relentless cruelty to those who crossed or vexed it, its generosity to those who did as they were told, and from those few rudimentary remarks she had built up a little golden temple of her own, quite an unseen spiritual affair, in which to worship the Supreme Being of Lucifram. She certainly gave to the gorgeous Serpent many qualifications she had never been told it possessed, but what of that? She was but a poor, helpless creature at best. But with a reverent, far-away love she had always worshipped the Serpent, although as a sex she had been given to understand he reckoned her somewhat inferior.

But now, sitting up in bed, there came to her one of those terrible convictions, never to be misplaced, that are in themselves the sheerest madness or the sheerest sanity, that she must get her tongue untied. And the Serpent, being the strongest of all powers on Lucifram, was the likeliest to do it.

Next afternoon at five o’clock saw Rosalie kneeling in the famous temple, her head buried in her hands, praying in the silence as only sincerity and helplessness can pray.

“Oh, Serpent, give me my tongue! Let me talk,” said she, a most natural request when coming from a woman.

Then she went home quite comforted, as only the simple can be.

“One does not pray for nothing,” she thought “I feel the Serpent heard me.”

And that night she was so happy, she did not notice her uncle’s troubled look and silent way. She did not mean to be selfish, she was thinking purely of her prayer.

Some weeks went by, and every day she walked to the temple and prayed:

“Oh, Serpent, give me my tongue! Let me talk.”

But no answer came to her prayer, and at last she got tired of kneeling down among the empty pews. The building was so big that she felt quite far away, so she picked up her courage and went up the big aisle, right up through the choir stalls to the steps rising towards the altar, hidden by the curtains. It was legitimate for any woman to go so far. She was perfectly within her right. So she went up the steps and knelt down quietly beside the golden railing.

And there she prayed to the unseen Serpent—prayed, and believed it heard her. Then she went home. How near she had been to that Unseen Power! How fervently she had prayed! The Serpent always answered prayer, always looked after the helpless.

On going home her ring at the door was answered by a neighbour with a white face and swollen eyes.

What was the matter?

An hour ago, soon after she went out, her uncle had been brought home after a stroke. Since then he had died, just after the arrival of the doctor.

Rosalie sank back against the lobby wall, her hands by her sides, her eyes filled with horror.

“Your aunt is upstairs in the back bedroom,” said the neighbour, who had told the story as quietly as she could, as gently as its tragedy allowed.

Rosalie pulled herself together and went upstairs, trying the bedroom door at the back. It opened, and she was thankful. Her aunt sat in a chair, her head buried in the pillow of the one spare bed. Rosalie went to her and touched her shoulder. The elder woman moved slowly, and then sat up, smoothing her grey hair.

“I’ve been here long enough,” she said dully. “I must go and see to things. Sit here, Rosalie. It isn’t for you to be about.”

Her dull grief repelled all sad advances. From the time that Rosalie found her lying there cramped against the bed she showed no further signs of weakness, no further signs of giving in, till the funeral was over.

Then when the blinds were drawn up once more, and the November light had flooded the room, she took her foster daughter in her arms and wept as only a broken-hearted woman growing old can weep.

“We went to school together,” she said at last, twisting her wet soiled handkerchief around her fingers. After that she scarcely mentioned her husband again.

But now time showed a great difference in the little household, in addition to its greatest loss. Money troubles and worry, of late months thickening ominously, had helped to bring about the sudden end. There were no more happy meals at tea-time, no bread to toast, nothing but the barest, rude necessities of life. For they were poor, so poor that they scarcely knew how to look the future in the face. Both were very helpless.

The elder woman in a few short months had grown old, shrunken, and thin. She tried at times to smile bravely, to take interest in life and neighbours, but life and interest had gone for her in the old playfellow and life love. And more and more each day since her uncle’s death Rosalie felt the want of speech. She could give none of that bright assistance that was needed. No better than a living shadow she was bound to go about the house. Yet still she went to the temple to pray in humility and faithfulness.

And then, as the spring came round, she heard vague, disquieting rumours of the little house being shut up. Her aunt was going to live with a married brother, whose wife had little in common with her, and she herself, Rosalie, was to be sent to a Home for the Deaf and Dumb and Blind, a large charitable institution, greatly enlarged and improved upon by the munificence of a dead millionaire, one Geoffrey Todbrook by name. Insufferable thought! To separate her from the only human being she had learnt to love, shutting them each within a dungeon of strangers! “O God! O Serpent!” What of the prayer of months, to give one atom in the multitude the powers of speech? Prayer of presumption! Its punishment the taking away of everything that makes some lives worth living, the precious gift of freedom.

And yet Rosalie set her lips hard, there was no drooping, and went once more, with faith supremely high, but heart all wrong and tortured, to kneel and pray to God within the temple.

CHAPTER IV
THE GOLDEN SERPENT

The afternoon was cold and gloomy, and by the time Rosalie reached the temple the little light that ever came there had quite died away. There were no Americans in Lucifram, no English tourists either, consequently the sacred building from morn to eve was silent as the grave except for matins and for evensong. But evensong was held at seven, and now it was but four.

Rosalie’s heart was in that terrible state of aching which approaches physical pain. Speechless, she knew herself quite helpless.

For lack of speech she must be separated from one who had suddenly grown more helpless than herself, one whom she could not bear to part with, one who had grown accustomed to her great defect, and had never labelled on the door those words: “Home for the Blind—the Deaf—the Dumb—Incurables.”

“Once I get inside there I am dumb for ever,” she cried to herself, as she stumbled up the darkening aisle. “Oh, I cannot go—I cannot! I want to live like other people. To be free—free—free!”

And so she knelt down beside the altar railings, and buried her face in her hands against its golden bars.

“Oh, Serpent, let me speak! Give me a tongue like other people have. I cannot go to that asylum—I cannot really. I cannot live without my aunt. We are all in all to each other. What good am I if I remain a speechless log? I might as well be dead.”

No answer. Darkness and silence. That was all. The impenetrable hardness of it sank to Rosalie’s heart. Suddenly she got up and looked round cautiously, with pale face and dark-rimmed eyes. There was no noise. Nothing moved in the empty building save herself. Silent and trembling, she took a step forward inside the railing, then another, and her hand touched the crimson curtain. Again she looked around, assured herself again that she was quite alone, silently drew back the heavy fold and stepped within. The lights upon the altar, burning by day and night, changed the dull gloom to brightness. Her wandering, awe-struck gaze fell full upon the Serpent, its head and jewelled eyes all shining underneath the slowly swinging lights.

Here, then, was the hidden God that all things worshipped. This was the God who punished some, rewarded others, and wore the creeds of ages on its three-pronged tail. Her eyes were dazzled by the brilliancy, but the Serpent’s wisdom gleaming from those curious eyes attracted her.

“Give me what I want! Give me what I want!” she whispered, and stretched out her white arms till her hands had clasped behind the Serpent’s head. Then she leant forward and pressed her lips against the cruel, hardened, lifeless fangs, and whispered yet again:

“Give me what I want—just so that I may serve you!”

As silently she unclasped her fingers, rising to her feet. She passed down the three steps leading from the altar, and became aware, with beating heart and sudden tumultuous fear, that she had been watched.

For, stepping from the side way, came a stranger, stopping her progress outward to the other side of the veil.

“What is it that you want?” he said.

In his eyes there shone the priceless worth of wisdom’s jewels, giving them in their brilliant expression something of the same impenetrable light the Serpent’s had.

Rosalie became confused, and mixed the two together. How could she help it, seeing both had come together? But no words were there for utterance. She raised her hand to her mouth, her eyes to his face—eyes that had grown in sadness and in beauty throughout a lifetime—and then she shook her head.

“Dumb?” said he.

She nodded.

“Is that what you came to pray about?”

Again she nodded. She looked up at him, and her eyes sank. After all, it was the secret of a life, for none knew of these daily visits to the temple, and now a stranger had discovered it—the secret which had been guarded so jealously all these years.

“And you come in here to pray often?”

She shook her head vehemently, and pointed outside.

“I see. You stay outside?”

Again she nodded.

Then he held the curtain aside, and she passed out, he following her.

The church without was black.

Rosalie gave a muttered cry of dismay—the building was so large, its pews, and steps, and labyrinths all so intricate. But her companion produced a light that glowed like a thin taper, but burnt with a clearer and a stronger light, and plainly lit the church around them.

“Never trust to the church to give you light,” said he whimsically, “unless, as now, you penetrate to the Holy of Holies!”

Rosalie smiled; she felt it was but polite, unaccustomed as she was to strangers.

Together they walked down the long aisle, and once she stole a glance up at him sideways, with great curiosity, to see what he was like. But the stranger was looking at her, and she bent her head downward again. She evidently did not possess the gift of sweet unconsciousness of self.

“I presume you wished to come away?” he said at the end of their journey, before he opened the heavy doors.

She nodded.

Then he laid his hand upon her shoulder.

“The Serpent must be very cruel and hardened if he withstand such a prayer as that you offered.”

There was more amusement than pity in his voice and expression. Rosalie felt, but did not understand it. Never had anyone in her narrow life been able to put so much expression into a mere hand-touch. In gratitude she could have taken and kissed it many times.

They passed out on to the high steps leading from the temple. The rain was coming down in torrents. The street lamps glistened through it, and the passers-by were infrequent.

“How are you going home?” he said. The outside world seemed to have separated them.

She pointed to her feet.

“Walking? Well, hurry and don’t get wet. It would be a pity to spoil the prayer by leaving no time for its fulfilment. Good-night!”

Then he moved away a step or two, and she stopped to put up her umbrella. Suddenly, however, he turned round, and came with quick strides toward her.

“See, here is my card. When you have made headway with the Serpent, and received an answer to your prayer, come and see me!”

And he scribbled on the back of the card “Admit Bearer,” and then handed it to her, once more leaving her standing on the steps.

Then Rosalie, having succeeded in getting up the umbrella, and gathering up her skirts, turned in the direction of home. It was a walk of about twenty minutes, and all the way she thought of the stranger, of his interesting face, deep eyes and mellow voice, his hand laid so kindly on her shoulder. She remembered, also, that sudden perceptible change when outside the church, a mixture of harshness and coldness and pride, more shown in his manner than his words.

“I wonder what he was doing inside the curtain?” she thought. “Perhaps he had gone there to pray like me. I hope I did not disturb him.” Then she sighed. “He looked a rich man, and he could say whatever he wanted to. There could be nothing he was wanting half so much as I.”

On reaching home she was met by her aunt. As soon as they were seated at the frugal tea, the lady explained that a Mr. Ellershaw, an acquaintance of her dead husband, had called that afternoon to see her. On hearing how matters stood, and the separation that was imminent, he had told her of a post of caretaker he knew to be vacant, where the work was to look after a large building in the city let out in flats to different business men. There would be a certain amount of work to do in connection with this—and he did not know whether either of them would care for such a post; but it was there if they wished. It would ensure them living together, four rooms in the topmost storey. Rosalie looked across her tea-cup and nodded her head eagerly.

“You like such a prospect?” her aunt asked quietly.

She nodded again.

“It will be very hard work, and I am not as strong as I used to be.”

Rosalie held out her hands and looked at them triumphantly. Then she pointed to herself, and smiled.

“You think you could undertake some of it?”

So together they wrote a letter accepting the post, and a week later left their old home, with all its memories and associations, to settle in a fifth storey dwelling amongst the skylights.

Rosalie felt her prayer in part was answered. They were not to be separated after all. Hard as the work might be, it meant freedom and the company she loved. She was content, went to the temple, knelt humbly and returned thanks. Then she went on praying for a voice with a faith born of simplicity and her own idea of God.

One day a priest found her praying there. He inquired the cause. Like the stranger, he was not long in finding it. He put his hand upon her head, and blessed her in the name of the Serpent’s three tails. Then he went back to the priests’ lodgings, and kept his story for supper. He was a jolly man, of the earth earthy, and his idea of the Serpent was that his golden coils were lucrative. The priest was not bad-hearted; he was simply mediocre. But he had a sense of humour—and who, indeed, but the soured and stupid have not?—and the idea of a girl kneeling by the altar railings (he had never seen her, as on that one unique occasion, step beyond) praying persistently to be allowed to talk when plainly she was physically beyond it tickled his sense of funniness. He laughed and shook till the tears ran down his face.

“And she believes it—that’s the biggest joke,” he cried. “Believes that if she prays long enough the Serpent will weary or turn merciful, and fulfil her prayer.”

“According to our history of the past, with its wonders and miracles, that is not so impossible as it seems,” said one, more thoughtfully.

“She’d best jump back a hundred year or two, and cap one miracle by another, then,” remarked a third.

“What did you say to her, James Peter?” asked a fourth.

“Oh, I blessed her, and prayed to the Serpent to look serious, and the request was granted. ’Twas a miracle on a small scale, I can assure you. I could have roared right out.”

“What is she like to look at?” put in a fifth.

“Pretty—sad-looking—just the sort of woman to get an idea. That is the sort we can’t afford to quarrel with. They tip so handsomely on Sundays.”

“Little or tall?”

“Oh, tall! Medium, at any rate. Couldn’t smile if she tried. Sacred liver of the Serpent! What a sermon for one of you fellows with a love of sentiment to preach on Sunday.”

“Wait till the woman is made whole, and sitting in the congregation. Then our fortunes are secured,” said another drily.

And in this respect the priests of the Serpent were very different from our own. Amongst themselves they never acted the hypocrite—the heathen idolaters!

So next day, when Rosalie went to pray, one or two passed in and out silently to behold the phenomenon. After a time they grew accustomed, and took no further notice of her. After all, a woman might as well spend her time in an attitude of humble devotion. Experience generally proved those to make the best sort of wives.

Rosalie and her aunt had been established a little over six months in the new home, and the work was so hard and unaccustomed that it was beginning to tell on both of them.

The older woman was little better than a breakdown before she came, and gradually without much complaint, but growing silence, she sank into the bed of weakness more. It was a sickness from which she never rose.

She had been too old to face these sudden changes, was not made of the stuff that endures, or not enduring, fights. So then this cloud had only risen in mockery to sink the heavier. Where was Rosalie’s prayer of love and thanksgiving?

The last week of her aunt’s illness was very strange and unreal to Rosalie—strange and unreal when, after the second funeral within a year, she sat alone in the little empty four-roomed storey.

Her hands, roughened, though not coarsened, by hard work, were clasped between her knees. Her head had sunk forward on her breast, her open eyes saw nothing.

Vaguely she hoped that she might be the next to go, thought of her prayer for speech, and dashed the bitter tears from her dull eyes. What of her prayer? Perhaps to the Serpent it sounded nothing more than clamorous presumption and self-will.

Again she had been offered the shelter of the Home for Deaf and Dumb by those who recognised her sad position. Was she ungrateful? Many poor waifs there were, she knew, in that great city, with none to help them to the scantiest food and shelter.

“I can’t believe you’re either kind or just, and I won’t pray to you any more!” she cried inwardly, jumping up fiercely at last. “I wasn’t made to be without a tongue. I wasn’t! I wasn’t! You haven’t the power to give me one; that’s what it really is.”

But no bricks and mortar fell to punish such an outburst.

“What have I done that I should be left here alone?” she continued. “I want to go along with aunt and uncle. You know I do. I can’t live here alone.”

But there was no answer. Gradually a calmer spirit came over her, together with a wish to find out that sphinx-like secret that wrapped itself in icy silence.

“What’s the good of making me want to talk if you won’t let me?” she asked.

Out of the vast silence a voice seemed to shape itself at last.

“Give up! Sacrifice!” it said.

It was such a very beautiful voice, and yet so very cold, that Rosalie shrank from it. Sacrifice was such a heathenish thing! Besides, what was there to sacrifice in the way of a tongue—she hadn’t got one, not a serviceable one, at any rate.

“The Serpent’s will comes first with all believers,” cried the same voice out of the silence.

“I wish we could agree,” said Rosalie, with no disrespect, and then fell a-thinking.

Yes. After all, it came to the old, old thing. A clashing of wills—one human, one divine—if such it could be called. And therein lay the only sacrifice that God or the Serpent ever needed. It meant the sacrifice of will.

Slowly and clearly the truth unfolded itself. If her faith were pure and unselfish, she must be willing to give up longing and praying for that which was beyond her, and still love and serve the Serpent even without reward.

And to what path did her duty point? The thankful acceptance of a shelter that was offered, a gentle surrender without bitterness into God’s hands. An ending of a prayer He thought fit not to answer.

It meant a great deal to Rosalie. The priest had laughed at her simpleness in expecting the performance of a miracle. Perhaps would all else had they heard it; but to her it was a very real thing, the outcome of real belief, that left a shattered feeling of disappointment when the ending came.

“I thought the Serpent always answered prayer when it was real,” she said, and felt suddenly like one moving uncertainly in unknown lands amongst a host of strangers.

The time was drawing round to autumn again, and now that her aunt had been removed, arrangements were being made for her going. Within the week, she had been told, she would go the Home. Those who had interested themselves on her behalf did not like to think of the lonely girl. The doctor who had attended the aunt and uncle had very kindly made it his business to remove all delays, such as often took place for those who were admitted.

Another woman, older and stronger, and more accustomed to the work, was engaged. She had been there for some time before her aunt’s death. Rosalie, in this new and quiet mood, recognised the kindness that had been shown to her on all sides. But though she was truly thankful, she could raise no enthusiasm. The next day, when afternoon came, she dressed herself as carefully as her worn clothes would allow, and went once more towards the temple.

But with what different feelings! For two years past she had gone always with the same earnest prayer, with no doubt of its acceptance, and now she was going to give up the prayer and everything that made her life worth living.

It was just such another wet, dull day as that a year ago when, with excess of feeling, she had drawn aside the sacred curtain and stept within the Holy Place.

To-day, as usual, she went and knelt beside the railings. All was growing dark. The same silence, the same utter emptiness, pervaded the temple now, as then. Now, as then, the great longing seized her to pass within the veil. So silently she rose, drew back the curtain stealthily, and stept within. The Serpent’s steadfast gaze demanded her first glance. Then she looked round, but perceived no stranger. Assured, she ascended the steps and knelt beside the gorgeous table. With tenderness and love, the outcome of simplicity and pure devotion, she clasped her hands once more about the Serpent’s head, kneeling before it.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered, her lips close to the terrible mouth. “I made a god of my own tongue instead of you. But now I understand. And, oh! Serpent, teach me the right way to live, and keep me from growing bitter.”

Then, as before, she imprinted a light kiss, tender and loving, on the unkissable mouth, and silently bowed her head some minutes on the table.

Then on a sudden Rosalie rose, her eyes wide open, and stared at the golden god. They stared in wonderment, but growing understanding. The light of dawning wisdom was in her eyes.

One minute, two minutes, three, passed away. She turned round suddenly, emerged into the church, dark now as once before about a year ago. A light was in her hand; she cared not how she came by it, but partly knew.

A priest from one of the choir stalls was watching her, with a feeble candle in his hand.

He called out “Treason! Blasphemy!” to see a woman thus emerge from behind the sacred curtain. It was James Peter.

Rushing forward, he slipped over a footstool, and fell down heavily. His light was extinguished. Down the vast aisle, with the lightness of a spirit, Rosalie ran. Her eyes were laughing, a flush was on her once pale cheek.

James Peter, rising, followed her. He puffed and groaned at every priestly step.

But when the door was open she turned and nodded to him in the distance. The door closed. He was in darkness. He had followed solely upon her light.

Not till the lights were brought for Evensong did he extricate himself from the toils of the massive building. Then he told his tale.

“I tell you she turned round at the door and called to me ‘Bon soir, monsieur! Adieu!’” he cried for the third time to his companions.

“Good Lord! What does it mean?” said one.

“Was she not dumb?” asked a second.

“As dumb as the Serpent!” replied James Peter. “She went into the Holy Place, and is cured.”

“A woman in the Holy Place!”

“Yes! I called ‘Blasphemy!’ but the damned footstool tripped me! Had it not been for that I had caught her and brought her up before the great High Priest.”

“A footstool tripped you!”

“Don’t speak so sneeringly, brother Thomas John. I said a footstool tripped me.”

“And you lost the woman?”

“What could I do without a light?”

“Strike matches.”

“I followed her eyes till the door closed, and forgot about them. Besides, not being a smoker, I never carry any.”

“Did you say you found a woman in the Holiest Place?” asked others, crowding round.

“I did not find her there, I saw her coming out.”

“Coming out! And never stopped her?”

“No!”

“But we must find her. What is her address?”

“I don’t know. What’s the punishment when we have found her?”

“In olden times it was to have her tongue torn out by the roots.”

“But the Serpent had just given her one, I tell you.”

“Nowadays, I expect, the punishment will be modified. Strict silence on penalty of death, maybe.”

“But if the Serpent has given her a tongue, who then dare take it away?”

“How has the Serpent given her one?”

“I tell you, before she was dumb.”

“Impossible! No woman was ever so afflicted—worse luck!”

“I tell you she was dumb, and is cured. She said to me at the door, ‘Bon soir, monsieur. Adieu!’ Very pretty words,” and he mimicked the tone and gesture.

“This is sheer madness. There is no sense in the words!” cried another.

“Is it necessary for women to speak sense?” asked James Peter.

All the others laughed. He looked dangerous. And so they talked, and all gesticulated. But the mistake was on the part of James Peter—in part, at least.

He never heard the lady speak. It was his own imagination which coined strange words without meaning.

CHAPTER V
THE MASTER

Rosalie outside the temple never paused, apparently, to think. She did not take the direction of her old home, but flew on as if scarcely touching the ground towards that portion of the city where lay the mansions and the ancient park. The usually crowded streets were almost deserted, the rain kept wayfarers within doors. Nothing hindered her rapid movements onward.

Greensward Avenue was one long vista of shining pavements, dripping trees, and glistening street lamps. Here and there brighter lights shone from the entrances to houses. But on Rosalie sped till she came to the central house, which stood a little back behind high iron palings.

The door had two leaves, and opened inward from the centre. There was a vestibule beyond, and then another double door of thickest glass, polished and cut to shine like diamonds. Above the hall door a deep red lamp was burning, which cast its light well out into the street. The only furniture within the vestibule was a broad chair of oak, and a massive umbrella stand all carved with hideous faces, very ancient, no doubt, but not exactly beautiful.

Rosalie noticed these as she stood on the top step touching the bell, and because each face was very fascinating she would have continued looking at them had not the inner door opened upon the instant.

It was not a creaking door. It opened noiselessly and swiftly, and in the doorway stood a man.

He had none of the superabundant dignity generally associated with the servants in rich houses. His hair was not powdered, his dress was plain, and black.

Rosalie, so swift and impetuous until now, came to a standstill. She looked at him, and he at her. She had no voice with which to explain her errand, and suddenly remembered her only chance of admittance there was the card. For it was to Marble House she had come, the house of the man whom she had met in the temple just a year ago.

“What is it that you want?” he asked. These were the exact words with which she had been greeted by the master.

Then she remembered the card was hidden away in the bosom of her dress in a little silken bag she had made in an idle moment for it months ago. She must produce it, that was evident, and trust to Providence to do the rest. She turned round towards the many-headed umbrella stand, and began to extricate the card of introduction. The man stood there waiting, and when she turned round, flushed and flurried, holding the card, and glancing at him suspiciously to trace the smile upon his lips, she found nothing there, not even surprise. He evidently was old enough to be beyond it

Rosalie pointed to the back; he read it, then motioning her to sit in the chair facing the hydra-headed umbrella stand, went in once more behind the polished doors and closed them after him.

The door opened silently again before long.

“Come this way,” said the low, serious voice.

The doors swung to behind them. They entered upon a large square hall. It was not brilliantly lighted, and the farther end was dim and scarcely discernible. But every thing was rich and massive, and highly polished. It reminded her in some indescribable way of the temple she had just left. Carved oak chairs, just as those seen in the sacred building, lined the walls, standing round in a perfect square, except where interrupted by some other article of furniture. These chairs seemed to be endless.

As Rosalie passed along she became accustomed to the dimness, and noticed from this farther end a spiral staircase ascending to the upper floor. It was built in polished oak, and went round and round in a way that reminded her of the Serpent’s coils. It led to a gallery that overlooked the hall on all sides.

Three double glass doors of the same peculiar lustre as the entrance (which made the fourth) led out of this hall, one on each side, one being beyond the staircase.

Her companion passed through that door to the left, and she followed him. They came upon a corridor, and stopped before the last door on the left-hand side. Her guide knocked, then opened it. There was no name to give; Rosalie had no tongue to speak, no card to show. Then the door closed again, and she found herself in the presence of the man whom she had come to seek.

He was sitting by a table reading. A fire was burning in the hearth near by. A high shaded lamp stood on the ground beside him. The floor was thickly carpeted, the walls were lined with books from floor to ceiling, one other door led from the room.

The Master looked up as she entered, then got up, pushing the book away.

“So you have come,” he said. He came forward and held out his hand.

Rosalie, trembling and uncertain, returned the hand-shake, nodding.

“What! you cannot speak yet?”

She shook her head, but as he was withdrawing his hand she clutched it eagerly, unconscious of anything but this one little sinking straw of hope.

This time he looked at her more closely. “What is it?” he asked.

She raised her other hand to her throat and mouth, then pointed to him, her eyes full on his face.

“I’m not the Serpent,” he answered, and he shook his head and tried to disengage his hand.

But Rosalie’s fingers tightened with a fierceness and determination altogether foreign to her. Her cheeks flushed, her eyes flashed angrily; she gave one little imperious stamp with her foot.

The Master looked at her and smiled—a smile that travelled from his eyes to the corners of his mouth.

“I see. You do not intend to go till I have performed an—an impossibility?”

Rosalie nodded in all seriousness.

“It is the gift of speech you’re wanting?”

She nodded.

“It’s very dangerous; leads people into all kinds of indiscretions.”

She shook her head vehemently.

“You think you differ from the commonality?”

But Rosalie neither shook her head nor nodded. She only looked up at him with no other expression in her eyes except dumb entreaty.

“Come to the light,” said he, “and try to look less ghostly. After all, if you can’t be cured you can’t. You’re brave enough to stand that, aren’t you?”

Again she nodded, still looking at him.

He pushed the shade of the lamp up. “Now open your mouth,” he said.

Obediently Rosalie did as she was told.

“Why, you’ve got a tongue!” said he, bending his brows, and stooping down to her. “Can’t you move it?”

But Rosalie could not. It was complete paralysis of the muscles evidently.

“Come with me, and I’ll see what I can do.”

He led her through the other door into another room. The walls of this place were lined with chests and cupboards with glass fronts, containing curious instruments. In the centre was a long table. The room was also fitted up with chairs such as dentists use, and a marble washing basin fitted with water pipes, hot and cold.

Yet when the light was turned on the general effect was cheerful. Rosalie found it so, at any rate, for renewed hope was springing in her heart. She sat down upon the chair he drew for her, and watched him whilst he went to the cupboard and brought out something shaped like a very long darning needle. It was thick at one end, very fine and pointed at the other. Then from another shelf containing flasks of glass polished and cut he took a liquid shining like silver, and poured some into a tiny crucible. With these he came back to her and placed them on the table. Then he looked at her, smiling.

“This will hurt you very much,” he said; “but you asked for it, so you will have to go through with it.”

Anyone but Rosalie would have noticed that the expression of his face was not particularly kind. But she noticed nothing. She leant back against the head-rest; he placed his hand upon her eyes. After that they were too heavy for her to open them. She opened her mouth instead.

It was a curious kind of pain, if pain it could be called. Never in the whole of her life had she ever felt anything so soothing. She could not tell how long the sensation lasted, but it ceased very suddenly. Then although her eyes were closed she felt (this was the curious part of it) a strong light shining into her mouth, right back to the roots of that so far silent tongue. It was a light that had the power to heal and strengthen, and for a long, long time it played upon every unused nerve and delicate muscle. At last all was over; the master laid his hand upon her eyes again and opened them.

“Now,” said he, “the miracle has been performed. Are you satisfied?”

From long custom Rosalie nodded.

“You must speak,” he answered, laughing, “if but to show your appreciation of the gift.”

“Thank you,” she said, quite perfectly, with just a little break in the word that took nothing from its sweetness.

“Did you find the pain very bad?”

“I nev-er felt it.”

“Never felt it?” he repeated. “Give me your hand.”

But her pulse was even, and he frowned.

“Where did you come from when you came to me?” he asked, bending his eyes down to hers with a keen, penetrating glance.

“I came from the temple.”

“From the prayer?”

“Yes.”

“Then you—” but here he stopped. “I see,” he continued, but in reality he didn’t.

“Did you expect I should be hurt?” she asked.

“I can hardly believe you were not.”

“But I should have screamed. I made no sound.”

“That was scarcely possible. For my own part, I always think it best to guard against screams, they are so unhelpful and unnecessary.”

Now Rosalie looked at him, with eyes just as keen and penetrating as his had been.

“Why do you stare at me?” he asked, smiling.

“To see if you are disappointed.”

Here he laughed.

“Be careful. Your tongue is getting rather out of bounds already.”

“I think you would rather have enjoyed my being hurt.”

“Well, what can you expect in a country where vivisection is disallowed? One must take what little pleasure one can get.”

Here he led the way back into the outer room. When they were both through he turned the key and put it in his pocket.

“I rarely go in there,” he said. “Few folks are fool enough to come to me. I have no ambition to become a doctor, and I shun the popularity that hangs upon the quack.”

They were both standing by the table now, one on either side. Rosalie’s eyes were fixed dreamily on a large glass ink-stand in the centre of the table. She was beginning to feel indescribably tired. There was nothing very wonderful in this, the operation had lasted longer than she was aware. But though tired, she was feeling remarkably light-hearted, longing to get outside and give herself two or three decided pinches to become convinced she was awake, and that this great good fortune of her prayer had at last come to her.

But over and above the tired feeling and the unreality came gratitude to her deliverer. The thought of this made her suddenly raise her eyes and look across at him.

Certainly his face was very proud, and the shadows lurking underneath his eyes and at the corners of his mouth gave it a dark, forbidding expression. It was not altogether pleasant.

“The feature I like best is his nose,” thought Rosalie. “The one that frightens me most is his mouth; the one that most interests me is his eyes.”

“You have been very kind to me,” she said. “Is there any way in which I can pay you back?”

But he shook his head.

“I do not think you could give me anything tangible, but perhaps you yourself will be able to suggest something.”

Rosalie flushed to the roots of her hair. “I haven’t anything,” she answered.

“Not even a soul?”

“What is that?”

“That part of you which under certain conditions becomes immortal.”

“That part of me belongs to the Serpent.”

“The Serpent passed you on body and soul to me.”

“The Serpent did nothing of the sort,” she answered vehemently, if slowly. “I—I—I—”

“You what?”

“I nothing.”

His eyebrows came together in a frown.

“Yes,” he answered quietly, “there is one way in which you can pay me back. Speak the truth in answering my questions.”

“I’ll try,” said Rosalie meekly.

“Then put an ending to that ‘I—I—I—.’”

“I came because I thought it was time. I got a little bit tired of the Serpent.”

“Why?”

“Because it never took any notice of me.”

“Are you sure?”

Rosalie’s curious eyes looked up innocently and met his.

“Does that surprise you very much?”

“I confess that it does.”

“Do you know, I’m very tired. If you don’t mind, I’ll come again to-morrow and talk it over.”

But he shook his head, and smiled again.

“I don’t think I’ll let you go,” he said. “Your answers are not very satisfactory. Besides, where is there you can go?”

“Oh, with a tongue one can go anywhere and do anything.”

“You think so?”

“Yes.”

And here from sheer weariness and exhaustion she slipped down in the arm-chair beside her.

It had been a very hard day, and the ending had told upon her strength. She had not fainted, however, she was only sleeping.

Mr. Barringcourt crossed the room and looked at her very narrowly, even dropping on one knee to examine her features more nearly.

It was a very pale, thin, and tired face he looked at, delicate and fragile, with dark lashes, and faint blue shadows underneath the closed eyes. The backs of her hands were rough, and he took each up and examined it as though he had been a fortune-teller—back and front.

Then he began walking slowly back and forwards through the room. His face, though handsome after a kind, was certainly not of the most prepossessing; and yet in repose his expression was one of weariness and contempt.

“What shall I do with her?” he muttered. “Keep her to prevent blabbing as usual. Keep her and bring her up to talk properly. When she is old enough, or rather fit enough, I’ll let her out on a lease long enough to take her to the devil. Always the same! everlastingly the same! coming and going, with nothing to give and everything to ask. Dull to the very core, chattering like magpies, smiling and aping God knows what! Rich and poor, all of them alike. And for some reason best known to myself I stand it. What an excellent patient fisherman I should make!”

Then he sat down again very deliberately in his chair, and drew the book he had been reading towards him, at the same ringing a bell. The same man who had admitted Rosalie answered it.

“Take her away, and see she doesn’t get out,” said he, without looking up; and the other evidently understood so well that he never asked a question.

CHAPTER VI
NEW EXPERIENCES

When Rosalie awoke next morning, it was with a pardonable sense of bewilderment and estrangement.

Instead of the little bedroom, bare of carpet, and devoid of all furniture, except the poorest and the simplest, she found herself in one that was really palatial.

The bed had deep hangings of red silk, and she was not up to date enough to tear them down as breeding microbes and all things unhealthy. Then by degrees, her eyes travelling beyond the bed, she gradually became acquainted with the other things within the room, washstand, dressing-table, sofa, chairs; and here Rosalie gave a squeal of delight, and jumped out of bed, for there opposite was a wardrobe, as respectable as carved black oak could make it. But it was not the wardrobe that attracted her attention so much as the mirror set full length in its middle door—a mirror larger than she had ever seen before or dreamt about. Rosalie was not vain, but she had always entertained a great longing to see her feet at the same time as her head, and had thought it only a luxury and privilege accorded to the rich. When she had become accustomed to this novel vision she walked over towards the windows. Here, so far as beauty was concerned, a disappointment waited on her. All three of them looked upon a high blank wall opposite. It gave a sense of extreme dulness to the place.

Just then her explorations and discoveries were cut short by a knock at the door, and on it entered a woman carrying a tray holding a cup of tea. Rosalie, who understood nothing of this sort of thing, stared at it and the bearer.

“I’m quite better now, thank you,” she said, shaking her head. “I was a little tired last night. I’d rather not have my breakfast in bed, if you don’t mind.”

“This is not your breakfast,” said the other, in a voice so well modulated that many seemingly more exalted might have envied it.

“Oh, what is it?” said Rosalie, standing still with her hands behind her looking at it.

“A cup of tea to help you to dress.”

She had the sweetest voice imaginable. Rosalie thought it the saddest she had ever heard.

“I shan’t be ten minutes dressing,” she replied decidedly.

“Quite an hour, I should say,” replied the other.

“Oh!” gasped Rosalie. Then she clapped her hands together, caught up the flowing robe and skipped across the room to the bed.

“If I’m not dressed in ten minutes, my name’s not Rosalie Paleaf.”

Then with a sudden change to alarm in her manner, she turned round, growing alternately hot and cold.

“I say, where are my things? I can’t see them anywhere.”

“I took them away last night. There are your clothes for the day.” And she directed her attention to a chair on which some very pretty and expensive lingerie was laid.

Rosalie looked at it, then drew herself up.

“I want my own clothes,” she said. “These are too good for me; the others might be poor, but they were my own.”

“I am afraid you cannot have them; you must dress in these.”

The tears rose in Rosalie’s eyes.

“I want my own clothes,” she said again. “Auntie and I cut and made them together. They were the last pair of stockings that she ever knit.”

There was no answer.

“Won’t you bring them back?” said Rosalie at last, the tears still standing in her eyes.

“I am afraid it is against the rules of the house.”

Then Rosalie got up with a sigh, and prepared to get inside the first garment.

“There is your bath first.”

“I never bath in the morning; I always leave that till night.”

“I think you had better do that which is customary.”

Again Rosalie sighed, and followed her tormentress to an adjoining bath-room.

And so it took her well on into the hour before she was dressed, ready to leave the bedroom.

Mariana, who stayed to help her, insisted on arranging her hair, and after all arranged it much more becomingly than Rosalie herself had ever done.

But the black robe with its red silk facings, that fitted her companion so becomingly, suited her not at all. The fit was as perfect as it could be, but otherwise she looked quite out of place in it.

Breakfast was served on the same floor as that on which her bedroom was—three rooms away.

All this portion of the house evidently looked out on to nothing better than the wall mentioned before; but the beauty of the interior compensated for outside gloom. Rosalie was charmed with everything she saw, though somewhat awe-struck, and she took her breakfast shyly from the hands of what she described to herself as the handsomest man she had ever seen. She also made a mental note that he must be brother to the man she saw downstairs.

Rosalie had not gone all this time without grateful remembrance of that ordinary gift she had come to possess; but somehow there was some vague, indescribable thing in her surroundings that took away a full appreciation. She was longing to be outside, to talk with people more like herself, not all in black with red silk facings and knee breeches, and voices modulated to a soft perfection.

Rosalie’s voice was sweet, but it was not the sweetness found in theirs. Hers was the outcome of expression, theirs of classical harmony. But how was she to get away? She dare not ask Mariana, for she was getting an uncomfortable idea that Mariana, from no ill motive, always thwarted and opposed her. So, watching her opportunity, she escaped and passed down the spiral staircase.

In the big hall below all was silent as death. Evidently no one was about.

She ran across to the big doors with a palpitating heart—outside them was freedom, she scarcely knew from what.

Alas! Another hand had touched the large glass handle before her own.

“Your card, madam. Your passport out.”

“I have none. I shall not be away five minutes.”

“I am afraid you cannot go.”

“But I must go.”

There was no answer. Exasperated, Rosalie stood and faced him.

“You let me in, and you can let me out.”

“The orders are that you are not to pass.”

“Whose orders?”

“The master’s.”

“Then take me to him.”

“He is engaged at present.”

“I’ll go myself, then.”

CHAPTER VII
A DEBT OF GRATITUDE

As Rosalie passed along the corridor her sudden decision was sealed by growing annoyance and a longing, almost amounting to fear, to get away.

With scarcely a pause she knocked upon the door, that door through which she entered last night. Without stopping she opened it. Mr. Barringcourt was there alone, at a table littered with papers, writing. He was indeed busy and engrossed, for on her entrance he did not raise his head, till accosted by her voice, and then he looked up sharply enough.

“You!” said he, bringing his eyebrows together in that dark frown which Rosalie had seen last night, and seeing had never forgotten.

“Yes. I want to go out.”

“Impossible!” said he, with an impatient gesture of his hand, and returned to the paper.

“I want to go out,” she repeated. “And you have no right to stop me.”

“In my own house I have every right. Go away, you are interrupting me.”

“So are you interrupting me.”

He laughed, not altogether kindly, and looked up at her again.

“That is little short of impudent.”

“I don’t care. I want to go out, and if you won’t give me leave, I shall take it.”

“Take it then, by all means.”

“That man at the door won’t let me.”

“Knock him down. It will be one way of surmounting the difficulty.”

“He is such an elephant. I disliked him the very first time I saw him,” she replied with energy, and as much simplicity as the truth occasioned.

“Well, go away and fight it out with him; watch the door, and bounce out when he’s not looking.”

“I won’t do anything so undignified. I shall make friends with the kitchen people, and creep out that way.”

“The kitchen door leads into the garden, and the walls are high, and the gate is locked. I keep the key myself, to ensure no one getting to the stables.”

“Then give me leave to go out at the front.”

“Now, why should you want to go out at the front? You have as beautiful a home as you could possibly wish for. What more can you want?”

“Fresh air and human beings.”

“You have them here.”

She shook her head. The tears rose in her throat, and were very hard to choke down again.

“It’s the dismallest place I ever came to; and I’m no use. The people here always contradict me.”

“You are the first person who has ever complained of them; and your opinion goes for nothing, your own conduct leaves so much to be desired.”

“In what way?”

“In my time I have experienced much ingratitude, but never any quite to equal yours.”

“I—ungrateful?”

“Most decidedly!”

“What are you wanting from me?”

“Quiet submission.”

Rosalie’s eyes opened wide, her lips parted; her expression was one of unfeigned surprise.

“What’s that?”

“To do what you’re told quietly. Now you know, there is no excuse for your not complying.”

“But to submit means to stay here.”

“Of course!”

“But I can’t. Oh, I can’t really! Anything but that.”

“Nothing but that. You come to me with the most unusual request, and I am fool enough to put myself out of the way for you. Then you expect to go away, or rather slip away, without any more words about repayment. And when you are brought back, all this squalling.”

“Nice people are quite content with ‘Thank you.’”

“I’m not nice, and ‘Thank you’ never appeals to me.”

“But if I stay here I can do nothing.”

“Yes, you can mope.”

“In return for a tongue?”

“Why not? It would be the height of self-sacrifice, and the perfection of thanksgiving.”

Her serious eyes met his thoughtfully. “Do you really wish me to stay here?”

“I not only wish, but am determined on it.”

“Then my self-sacrifice can never be spontaneous.”

“You mean you are changing your mind. You are wishful to stop?”

“Not wishful, but if you want it, I’ll—I’ll try to settle down more cheerfully. After all, it’s only just.”

“That is so.”

“Shall I often see you?”

“Never. I am not fond of inflictions.”

He spoke so drily, and the words were so unkind, that Rosalie’s wistful face grew paler. Yet still she argued to herself it would be selfish to wish to be free, to have a tongue and everything. And after all, the stranger was so clever that he must of necessity know best.

“Will you let me out just for an hour?” she asked at length, with a voice greatly subdued from the first clamorous outburst.

“Not for an hour.”

“But I have an aunt, and she is dead. I shouldn’t like strangers to take what once belonged to her.”

“Where is your uncle?”

“He is dead too.”

“Your people?”

“I have none.”

“Where then, in the name of all the devils in Lucifram, do you intend to go to?”

“I thought when people knew I had miraculously come by a tongue they would—”

“Ah! I thought as much. You want to behave with all the absurdity of a hen that has laid an egg.”

“Indeed!” said Rosalie, flushing.

“You want to get out just to cackle.”

She was silent.

“You admit it?”

“I admit nothing but your want of manners.”

“What a waspish, vinegarish tongue yours is.”

“It’s the fault of the doctor, then. If one cannot produce a sweet instrument one might as well admit oneself a failure.”

“How was I to tell? Your face was so deceptive.”

“Maybe so is my tongue. I was only speaking in fun. Let me out for one hour. Lend me twopence, and I will return, having spoken to no one, and in the right frame for being submissive.”

For a short time he was silent. At last he said:

“Promise me faithfully you will return.”

“I promise you most faithfully.”

“Within the hour?”

“Yes.”

“You understand perfectly that my reason for bringing you back is not for any personal gratification I should derive from it. It is simply so that you may not obtain any great or particular pleasure from having a prayer perfected.”

“You speak plainly enough for the dullest mind.”

“I’m glad. Now you may go. And remember, come back if you have any sense of gratitude.”

So Rosalie passed out again into the farther hall.

“I have permission to pass,” said she at the door, and then she stood outside.

It seemed to her when she reached the parapet that she had been out of the world for years. And oh! to be back in the world again! To see and hear the sights and sounds, so commonplace and ordinary, yet to her stilled ear so sweet again. Never had that terrible silent mansion struck her as so terrible till now she stood amongst the noise of work and life once more.

One hour of freedom. One hour with the light, jogging world, and then to pass once more beneath the shadow—a silent spirit in a silent world. The ’bus rattled on, taking its own slow time towards that quarter of the city where she had lived. She found the upper storey empty, and none had missed her. Yesterday the doctor had told her his intention of coming for her at four o’clock to-day. It was not yet quite twelve.

Each of the little rooms was now quite bare, except the tiny attic called her bedroom. In it were gathered the few trivial things she prized as belonging to days that were less dark than these. There was a necklace of coral, a collar of lace, a pair of gloves, kid, backed with astrachan, the last present her uncle ever gave her; a tiny brooch of gold, left by her aunt, and always worn by her, and but little else. One other thing she found, a book that in that planet compares nearly to our Bible. Sadly and lovingly she placed them all together, and kissed them many times, her eyes blinded with tears; and then a voice whispered:

“Why go back? Go to this doctor. Tell him everything, for he is kind. None would blame you for not returning to that prison mansion, even though under a promise. It was an unfair advantage.”

But Rosalie shook her head.

“I must go back, because I promised. I asked everything in return for nothing. And God, in His own good time, will make the dark path plain.”

The struggle gradually died, and Right conquered.

At last she was ready to go. Glancing round for the last time, she saw upon the mantelpiece a key, a solitary one upon an iron ring.

“It belonged to uncle’s safe, the one that had so little in it,” she thought. She took it up. Its dull appearance suggested so much dull tragedy to her. “I’ll take it with me,” she thought, and slipped it in the pocket of her dress.

Then she passed down the broad stone steps out once more into the street. Her brief holiday was over. The short hour was almost passed. She clenched her hands together, and drove back the blinding tears that struggled in her eyes. Gradually she drew nearer to the Avenue—how eagerly she had rushed there on the night before! The great black marble mansion came in view, its dusky grandeur having a certain sinister lowering to her understanding eye no different from a prison.

“I wonder when I’ll walk along this street again?” she thought, and ascended the marble steps, hiding all trace of past emotion.

CHAPTER VIII
A BOOK OF INSPIRATION

“The master wished to speak to you when you returned,” the attendant at the door said to her when he answered it.

Rosalie crossed the hall, feeling that vague sense of satisfaction that generally accompanies honesty, and which at times appears so poor a recompense.

This time on knocking she waited for the answer. When it came she opened the door and entered.

Mr. Barringcourt was in the act of filing papers, and generally tidying up the littered table.

“You are quite punctual,” said he. “And what is more, astoundingly honest.”

“You did not expect I should return, then?”

“No! Honestly speaking, I thought I had seen the last of you.”

She shook her head.

“Gratitude brought me back at the expense of inclination.”

“You should have yielded to temptation, and run away.”

“Perhaps my action in returning was not quite so commendable as you think. I was much tempted to run away, and then—”

“What?”

“I could find no place to go to.”

“You have no appreciative friends?”

“Not one.”

“The doctor?”

Rosalie looked up quickly, and flushed. “Why do you speak of him?”

“I’m sure I don’t know,” he answered drily; “I believe I was meaning myself.”

“Oh—yes—of course,” stammered Rosalie. “I thought you meant Dr. Kaye.”

“Then you had notions of appealing to him?”

Rosalie laughed. “You are not the pleasantest of companions.”

“You might as well make a confidant of me. I am the only one you will find for some time.”

“Well, yes, then,” she answered, looking across at him with a timid glance. “I thought of running to the doctor, informing him you intended making a prisoner of me in a free city, and asking him to give me the benefit of his protection and advice.”

“And you thought better of it?”

“You told me if I was grateful I should return. I was grateful, and though there seems something very topsy-turvy about the recompense you ask for, there is something in it that appeals to my sense of justice.”

“That is why you came back?”

“There is no other reason.”

Mr. Barringcourt all this time had been sitting in his chair by the table. Rosalie was standing at the farther side of it. Now he got up and walked over to the fireplace, where the fire was burning brightly.

“What is your name?” he asked.

“Rosalie Paleaf.”

“Brought up by an aunt and uncle?”

“Yes.”

“Always dumb, and therefore very much out of the world?”

“Yes.”

“Where did you learn the little bit of knowledge you possess?”

“I listened to it. I was not deaf, you know.”

“Could you read?”

“Yes, I can read. That is how I used to spend most of my time.”

“Travels, novels, or biography?”

“A little bit of both—all three, I mean. ‘The Life of Krimjo on the Desert Island,’ which was my favourite, contained a little of all, I think.”

“Ally Krimjo was only make-belief,” said he ruthlessly.

“Indeed he wasn’t! He had gone through everything he spoke about, the shipwreck and the loneliness, the savages and everything. Make-belief! Oh, Mr. Barringcourt, have you ever really read it through?”

“Yes, at the time it was written.”

Here Rosalie laughed again triumphantly.

“That shows you don’t know the book I’m talking about at all. The man who wrote it lived hundreds of years ago. Quite three hundred, I should say.”

“At that rate I must be mistaken. Then if you are so fond of travel and biography, I have some volumes here all on that subject, written, too, about the time you speak of. You will have a great deal of time lie heavy on your hands; perhaps you would like some?”

Rosalie looked dubious, and her eyes travelled to the imposing-looking book-shelves.

“I never found anyone quite to come up to Ally Krimjo,” she replied regretfully.

“You refuse my offer?”

“Not if you give me something interesting. But as a rule I don’t like biographies, because the people always die. Now, Ally Krimjo—”

“You’re quite right,” said Mr. Barringcourt grimly. “Ally Krimjo hasn’t died, so he deserves to live. Have you the Book of Divine Inspiration?”

“Oh, yes! I don’t suppose there’s anyone without that?”

“Here’s one with pictures; look at it.”

He took down from a shelf a heavy and ponderous volume of the Book of Divine Inspiration, as written and compiled in the planet Lucifram, and carried it without the least apparent effort to the table.

“Now come and look at the pictures. I’ll show you a few, and then you can take it away with you and look at the rest.”

He opened it at the first page—the frontispiece. It was a picture of the Golden Serpent, so lifelike that its appearance was most startling. The book, likewise, must have possessed the property of magnifying all contained in it, for suddenly the head and coils and tails seemed to enlarge to the same gigantic size as that within the temple.

“I don’t like it. Don’t show me any more of that book,” Rosalie said.

“But why?” he asked, with apparent surprise.

“Oh! I don’t know,” she answered, almost whispering. “It’s the Serpent. I don’t like it.”

“But you are the young lady who was kissing its head, and throwing your arms around it.”

“Yes, I know. That was because I did not understand.”

“And now?”

“Oh, now! I think it’s cruel and deceitful.”

“That’s nothing short of blasphemy. The Serpent is a god!”

“Do you believe that?” she asked, suddenly looking up, and fixing his eyes with a look as keen as it was serious.

Two pairs of eyes, dark and light, each encountered one another—each trying to read the other’s secret—and both for once inscrutable, dark and light alike.

“Yes. I’ve got a pretty good mental digestion; it can take most things,” he said, the corners of his mouth curving into a smile. “Look! Miss—Miss—What’s your name, by the way?”

“My name is Rosalie—Rosalie Paleaf.”

“Well now, Miss Paleaf, let us turn to the second picture.”

Reluctantly she turned round once more, to behold a forest jungle, as fine and beautiful a scene as one could wish. Its size and realism made her put out her hand to pull a twig of feathery foliage, when suddenly she was startled to see beneath it a pair of eyes, wild and yet intelligent, gleaming out at her. It was an animal shaped and sized much like a monkey. Behind it was another of the same kind, a partner in its joys and sorrows evidently.

Rosalie sprang back.

“Look at that hideous thing!” she cried in horror, pointing to it. Then recollecting herself, she said, with an effort at more self-control and appreciation: “Are—are they extinct now?”

“I don’t know, I’m sure. What would you say?”

“I sincerely hope so, I’m sure. Put it away. There is something uncanny about that book. That creature startled me.”

“It’s an acquired taste. Here we come to another.”

He had turned onward to a third picture, in which was shown a woman sitting on the roots of a tree, the expression of her face long and uncompromising, full of discontent. She wore no clothing, but her long and silky hair was sufficient covering. She was of no particular beauty, and her expression of discontent, mingled with curiosity, subtly introduced, and having little intelligence to enlighten it, gave the girl a feeling of repugnance. In one hand she held a fruit of brilliant scarlet; a mouthful was being eaten, and its taste did not seem altogether to her liking.

“What do you think of this?”

“I like it very little better. The man who painted it, judging from her face, understood human nature, and had very little mercy for it.”

“There you are mistaken. It is a caricature,” he answered softly, “painted one day by a man, and sent to his dearest friend—a woman.”

“But she is eating a tomato.”

“Of course! Let us continue.”

The next picture showed this same woman standing beside a man who sat upon a rock cracking nuts with his teeth. As Rosalie looked the scenes began to move and become lifelike, pretty much in the same way as a cinematograph. At first the man did not perceive his companion, but turning suddenly, in the act of taking a broken shell from his mouth, he saw her holding the scarlet fruit, from which she had taken no more than two fair mouthfuls. On seeing this his jaw dropped, his eyes expanded.

Thin, far-away voices came from the picture, aiding the illusion.

“What for did you that?” said he, in a voice devoid of beauty and expression.

“To find out,” she replied, in the same manner.

“But we die—we die—if we eat fruit of blood colour!” he cried, with superstitious horror in his voice.

“We no die, we live and grow fat. I eat, I live; but I miss something.”

“What?”

“I know not. Eat, and tell me.” Her look was cunning.

“I dare not.”

“It is the best of all kinds—but for one thing.”

“And what is dat?”

“Eat, and tell me. You be my faithful love.”

Gingerly he took it in his hand, applied it reluctantly to his lips, sucking the juice alone.

“It wants—”

His low forehead wrinkled. He could not formulate his thoughts.

“What?”

“It wants—”

And then all round a million voices echoed:

“It wants but salt!”

“Salt!” he shouted, drowning the harmonic voices in his new discovery.

Hereupon the woman fell upon her knees, and almost worshipped him, kissing his hands and feet, weeping tears of pleasure on them.

“Scrape me some up,” he uttered, taking advantage of her low position.

She did it with her finger-nails.

“Now stand back whilst I eat it.”

“But I—I found it.”

“Stand back, goose, and watch me eat.”

“I found it first,” she whimpered.

“Here’s a seed—that’s all you’re worth,” he answered. “Now I go to find more,” said he, jumping up valiantly. “You bake bread and get me butter for when I return.”

“I come too!” she cried. “You eat the whole while I worky work.”

“Fool—toad—weasel—monkey! bake me the bread, or I your neck am breaking!”

And with that they disappeared from the page. Only the picture in its first stage remained visible.

“That’s not pretty at all,” said Rosalie.

“Few things are in real life,” he answered.

“But that was caricature.”

“Not in the way you think. It was caricature, I grant, but with a difference.”

“Yes. I don’t think the eating of salt with tomato could make a man really superior, do you?”

“No; but it was the fact that he discovered salt.”

“But he didn’t. He was as ignorant as she till the voices whispered it.”

“Nevertheless, he caught the first sound.”

“Yes, of course,” said Rosalie thoughtfully.

Here Mr. Barringcourt laughed.

“You do not appreciate its true absurdity,” he said; “but that, maybe, is scarcely necessary. Now, that picture, or series of pictures, was painted by a woman, and sent to the man who had sent her the first.”

“But how about the voices?”

“Oh! she was no ordinary woman, by any means.”

“Was she quarrelling with the man?”

“No. They were amusing each other in wet weather.”

“They paint most beautiful scenery, but I don’t like their men and women.”

“You are not intended to. Now, shall we go on?”

“No; I’d rather not, really. It gives me headache, and I’ve had it ever since yesterday afternoon, except for that little bit after you had healed me.”

“You are tired of the Book of Divine Inspiration?”

“I’m tired of the pictures; they are no better than caricatures and skits. I don’t think that’s a good book to keep in a house at all.”

“You astound me! Were you not brought up to worship the Serpent?”

“Yes; but the Serpent disappointed me.”

“I see. You only worship a God who is content to spoil you?”

She shook her head.

“I don’t know,” she said. “Perhaps I’ll settle down again before long.”

“I hope so. Has it ever struck you, Miss Paleaf, how completely you are in my power?”

“No,” she answered, looking at him quickly.

“Well, you know, I found you in the temple, in the Holiest Place—the place forbidden to women. Do you know what the punishment for that transgression is?”

“No.”

“To have your tongue torn out by the roots.”

“Impossible!”

“Not in the least. In this one interview with me you have said enough against the Serpent to set all its scales and coils bristling, and its fangs working.”

“I have said nothing.”

“‘Cruel and deceitful,’ were not those your words?”

“Yes; but to tear my tongue out would not be to prove it otherwise. The Serpent’s wisdom should assert itself and prove the opposite. You were also in the Holiest Place.”

“Of course; but for a man the offence is not so capital.”

“Tomatoes and salt,” said Rosalie, and she laughed. He laughed also.

“Your impudence is only beaten by your ignorance.”

“As often as I offend solely with my tongue, you must take the blame yourself. I think you must have oiled the wheels too freely.”

“It is a good thing you have no relatives, Miss Paleaf; they would have missed you, disappearing so suddenly.”

“Under the circumstances, I suppose it is.”

“Were you happy with them?”

“Oh, yes! As happy as the day, when we were in prosperity. But this last year has been nothing but shadow and poverty, and I don’t think I ever realised how many things I had to be thankful for till they were all gone.”

“The gift of speech does not compensate for all things, then?”

“I don’t know. I have had it so short a time.”

“You are longing for freedom, and can find nothing to compensate for the bitterness of its loss. Is not that it?”

“I don’t think it is only that. My aunt was only buried the day before yesterday. I should be very callous and ungrateful if I could forget her so readily.”

“Yet you cannot deny the events of the past day have put a great gulf betwixt you and her.”

“Yes; I could think she had died a year ago along with uncle. Poor thing! It would have been so much better if she had done so, I think.”

“How long do you think your term of imprisonment will last?”

Rosalie shook her head.

“I don’t know. The future has always been a blank to me. I never built those castles in the air that many love to build.”

“How about your prayer to find a tongue?”

“I don’t know. I longed to speak, but never looked into a future crowned by successful prayer.”

“Well, your term of imprisonment here lasts three years.”

“It is a long time.”

“On the contrary, reckoned justly, a very short one.”

“What do you mean by ‘reckoned justly’?”

He took up a bundle of filed papers from the table.

“These are accounts of long standing,” he answered gravely. “It is strange how quickly a high rate of interest accumulates. What you wipe off in three years or less by ready payments, some are leaving till a future date, till it accumulates and doubles, then maybe trebles, and some day swamps them.”

Rosalie’s eyes opened with unfeigned surprise.

“But whom is the money owed to?”

“To me.”

“Have you all those debtors?”

“These are a few—a very few. People find out the softness of my heart, and then they come to me. Women with stingy husbands and extravagant tastes, men with limited brains and boundless ambition. Each and all, with many other pleas and reasons, call upon me and win me over to their way of thinking. I am always won. No simple-hearted fool within the country gives in more easily than I when I can gain security of person.”

“But don’t you tell them that you expect return?”

“No; I like them to think there’s one generous person in the world.”

“But that is scarcely fair. You ought to tell them what you want.”

“The argument would be beyond them. Besides, it would come then too much like making bargains. I am no shopman. Those who seek me find me. Others stay away.”

“But this is nothing short of madness. How can you make people pay without a signature or anything?”

“I never jest but when it suits my purpose. And for madness, I grant upon the surface it may appear as such. But each bill works backward—item by item, year by year. Mathematicians and philosophers looking through them would find a subject more than fascinating.”

“But if when you show your bill the people refuse to pay, and say they never got the goods?”

“Why, then, one little snip and the fabric ravels out again, loop by loop, as it was knitted up. Back it goes to the fundamental working, as rigid as machinery, as true as time, and ends in nothingness.”

Rosalie was silent for a time, and then she said: “Is that how it is you are such a rich man?”

But he shook his head.

“I am poorer than many people think,” he answered. “And richer too—wealth is comparative. But now,” he continued, with more energy, “I have come to the conclusion that your term of prison life shall not be quite so dull as you expected. You may come to me at any time, provided I have leisure. Moreover, you may borrow any book; amongst all these there will be surely some to suit you, even though it be but a uniquely pictured book of Ally Krimjo.”

“But what are you expecting in return? You say you like people to esteem you generous, and are not in reality so at all. This generosity to me may end in nothing but a high percentage. It may bring me down to nothingness.”

“You have the advantage of being young, you see. I might end your debtor if I tied you up in an unsympathetic prison, and let you out at last, to find I was too late, and your spirit killed by solitude.”

He was looking at her with a puzzled and thoughtful expression, as if trying to weigh or settle something in his mind to his own satisfaction.

“I think you were easier to understand dumb than you are speaking,” he said at last.

“Well, yes, because I would be less complex,” said Rosalie wisely. “I was minus something before, now I’m not.”

“Maybe. When will you come to visit me again?”

“To-morrow morning, if I may. From twelve to one?”

“Yes. We’ll arrange for that hour twice a week. It will be neither too long nor too often to bore either of us. The rest of the time you’ll spend as best you can within the house and gardens.”

CHAPTER IX
MARIANA

Rosalie went away again, upstairs to that corridor on which the rooms in which she lived were situated. Another meal was there in readiness, for the hour was now past one. She ate with little heart, the silent attendant by her side unwittingly depressing her. When the meal was over she went to a little sitting-room which Mariana had shown her, taking her small parcel of belongings with her, and shut the door.

Here a fire was burning, the only one in that particular wing, for they seemed to be chary of fires here. The room had little of brightness about it otherwise. Its walls were panelled oak without design or ornament. An oaken table on three legs, a few high-backed chairs, a rug before the fireplace, polished boards the floor; that was all. A narrow window looked out upon the blank wall opposite, giving the room a gloomy, darkened look. Yet there was something about this simply furnished room that Rosalie liked. It was less luxurious than any other in that house which she had visited.

She drew one of the high-backed chairs toward the fire, and sat down, her feet upon the fender. She had taken her small Book of Divine Inspiration from the parcel, and sat holding it idly in her hands, staring at the flames. After all, it was comforting to be able to hold something, something familiar and not strange, something that had been handled and read by loving hands and eyes, though now they were passed away for ever.

For Rosalie, despite her behaviour downstairs, was only playing a part. Laughing or answering, there had been ever in her heart the Serpent’s tooth. It gnawed and stung with almost unendurable pain. O God! to be but rid of it for five sweet minutes.

So far as Rosalie was concerned, there were no late dinners in this house of mystery. She had ordinary tea at five o’clock, and then the lights for the evening were brought in, and the red curtains drawn. About seven Mariana knocked at the door, and entered.

“This is my evening for playing,” said she quietly; “would you care to come and listen to me?”

“Thank you; I should like to come very much. What do you play?”

“Play? Oh! I always play on a violin; it’s my favourite amusement. It’s the way I always spend my night out.”

“Night out,” thought Rosalie; “what an expression coming from her lips!”

Aloud she said: “I’m very fond of music. Have you learnt long?”

“I don’t remember learning, but I suppose I must have done.”

She led the way along the corridor, down the slippery stairs, and turned in at the glass door leading from the central hall towards Mr. Barringcourt’s study; but she did not go there. Instead, she paused at a door next to it on the same side. She passed in, and held the door for Rosalie to follow. The room within was dark, but it must have overlooked the Avenue, for lights from the outside shone weirdly in through the long windows, lighting up short lines of furniture, half a grand piano, a strip of table, an ottoman, and a piece of wall.

Mariana turned on one light. It was soft and shaded, but had not strength enough to illuminate the whole room. The farther corners were entirely in the shade.

“Will you not turn on more lights?” asked Rosalie.

“No; I like the twilight best. I can think and feel better when the light is low.”

Then she uncased the violin which she had brought down with her, and tried the strings, testing them by the piano, which was now a little better brought to view.

Rosalie went over to a window—it was the natural instinct of a prisoner—and looked out of it with hungry eyes.

Passing, passing, never ceasing, went the traffic, and through the closed windows came the muffled sound of horses’ feet, and wheels, and voices. Feverishly she scanned each face as closely as she could in the distance; but she read nothing on them but what one reads on a hundred faces every day. Her heart beat with an aching longing to touch the pavement again with free feet. Three years! It was a lifetime. One day in a house like this contained an agony of years.

“I am impatient,” she said, and closed her lips patiently and tight.

She had forgotten Mariana’s music—in the testing of the chords—till suddenly, after a short pause, she began to play.

Rosalie’s attention was first divided between the music and the street. What was played seemed to fit in with her mood—a simple air of sadness. But this harmonic accompaniment had its dangers, for by degrees Rosalie felt her spirits, instead of keeping pace with it, begin to follow. Then the street claimed her attention less, the music absorbing it. And at last she turned round reluctantly and looked toward the player. Mariana, never an ordinary-looking woman, was by the one pale light quite extraordinary. The long graceful robe she wore made her look more than commonly tall. Her pretty arms, white and delicate yet, full of a certain indefinable strength, and the ivory whiteness of her face, had a curious charm and fascination in the dim lights. But beside her playing, the musician herself was insignificant. From sadness her notes changed to melancholy, from melancholy on to misery, from misery to despair. Despondency, tragedy, hopeless complaint, and restless, weary wandering on those spiritual wastes where no light comes, or even narrow track to show that ever pilgrim passed before—this was her music.

Her face as she played betrayed no great emotion. The brightness in her eyes spoke more of mental activity and retrospection than of sentiment. Gradually the listener’s eyes fell on the furniture around. Much of it, in conjunction with the rest of the house, was of polished oak, carved finely and curiously. Opposite there was a cabinet museum about the height of a man, and above it the carved head of some idolater’s god, growing in clearness as she became accustomed to the light

But surely the music had affected it. Its ugly eyes, protruding and rid of all intelligence, altered slowly to expression almost human. For every quivering note struck from the violin found a resting-place within these staring orbs, filling them both with misery. Their dumb speech was terrible, but when Rosalie moved away, more ghastly still by reason of their persistence. She looked away. There on the floor beside her was a tiger-skin, a rug of worth and beauty, with a head and glassy eyes. Its eyes met hers. Their dumb misery told a tale beyond the power of speech. Shivering, she turned and moved away.

When would Mariana stop and take her from this wretched room? She had moved within range of the statues, those dim, misty forms of whiteness which rose like ghosts with out and upstretched arms to beckon her. Faces of cold, white, and deathly beauty, and eyes! Oh, terrible! all gazing into hers with that sad gaze and straining misery, reaching to the height and depth of agony.

It was enough. Had they but wailed, or cried, or uttered sound, the spell had broken. But here was silence—ghastly, terrible, because so secret and so unexpected.

At last the tension reached a limit. On all sides Rosalie encountered ghastly faces of long-suffering pain to which the music seemed to form a fitting background. Turning hurriedly to escape one face belonging to a child, set in a picture hung upon the wall, her glance fell by chance upon the mirror and revealed herself, strained horror in her eyes, with blanched cheeks and open lips. She scarcely recognised who stood there. It was enough. She crossed the room half running, and clutched Mariana’s arm.

“How much longer?”

“The time is up. Alas! how quickly it has passed. Never again till next week, and then but two short hours. And yet you ask me, ‘How much longer?’”

“Can you play like that, and never feel it?”

Mariana shook her head.

“It’s the only time I ever feel, the only time I ever live.”

“But it is pain and sorrow.”

“Better than emptiness. Now I have lost the only thing I love. All week it lies quite mute, a thing of idleness, bursting with life. And when I take it up it utters so long a wail, so sad a sigh, that my heart returns to it, and we weep together till pain becomes an ecstasy and sadness joy.”

“Oh, Mariana! what a life is yours!”

“No different from the rest. A life of grey to-morrows that come and go in endless twilight.”

“Will you feel like this to-morrow?”

“No. To-morrow brings a calm existence. To-night I fill my heart with tears.”

“What was it brought you here?”

“Oh! I loved not wisely, but too well, this little fiddle.”

“And has it brought you to this pass?”

“Yes, if pass you call it.”

“Then, Mariana, give it up!”

For her the dimness of the room had vanished, its fantasies and ghostly shadows thrown off with one great effort. She grasped the other’s arms in both her hands, and stared at her, taller by her sudden force and fierceness. The other looked at her, and then recoiled.

“Give it up! The only joy of life—the only life beyond a dull existence! Why, I should die—the very thought would kill me.”

“No! It would make you live!”

But Mariana only looked at her, and shook her head.

“Rosalie, can I play? Can you make anything out of it?”

“I never heard such music; but it is wrong—it’s the wrong sort.”

Then Mariana came close up to her, just as before she had drawn back, and, with a sudden weakness, drooped her head upon the other’s shoulder, clasping her hands about her waist.

“Don’t say that!” she cried, her voice little above a whisper. “I cannot bear it. I can do nothing more. There is no time. Once or twice I asked the Master would he listen, and he did. But he said there was no tune in what I played, no harmony of any sort—that all was a delusion, a fancy of my brain.”

“But that was not the truth.” And Rosalie held her very tight, that woman who in the morning had seemed so strong to her. “And he only said it because he knew you would be fool enough to take it all to heart.”

“Hush! hush! It’s treason to talk like that.”

“Nothing’s treason but failure. You follow my advice, and give up the fiddle. Then after a while you’ll get it back again in such a way that even Mr. Barringcourt will not be able to say there’s no tune in it.”

Mariana looked at her, with surprise and misunderstanding on every feature.

“I can’t give it up. I’m bound to play for two hours every Wednesday night, harmony or discord.”

“Why bound?”

“It was the stipulation I made when first I came here. It’s the kind of thing one can’t break through.”

“You don’t want to?”

“No, I don’t; but if I did I could not.”

“You would rather live for two hours a week than seven times twenty-four?”

“I don’t understand you.”

“No, and never will.”

It was Mr. Barringcourt’s voice, and he spoke from the door, through which he had entered.

CHAPTER X
A CONVERSATION IN SHADOWS

When Mr. Barringcourt was in it, the great black house held its mysteries and shadows; without him they seemed aggravated fourfold. Not long after the Wednesday evening music, Rosalie stood in the centre of the hall suddenly smitten with the most chilly fear she had ever experienced in her life. No noise, no sound, not even the wind without, penetrated those walls of iron marble. Shadows and silence in endless vista met her eye. Shadows and silence like a sigh congealed, changed from nothingness into reality.

Dreading the loneliness, and her own want of nerve to go upstairs, she went to the door and accosted the keeper there.

“Does this house frighten you?” she asked.

“Not at all,” he answered, most politely.

“That is strange, because I feel most frightened here. It is not haunted, is it?”

“What do you mean?”

“There are no—no ghosts?”

He smiled. “That depends upon your imagination, I should say.”

“I want to go upstairs, and I dare not. You don’t think me very foolish, do you?”

“Where is Mariana? Does she not look after you?”

“Yes. But she went away, nearly an hour ago.”

“Shall I call her?”

“Oh, please do!”

He touched a bell, and a minute later Mariana appeared coming down the staircase. She looked as calm as ever. The short outburst of the evening had died away.

“I’m sorry to trouble you. But I really could not come upstairs alone. The house was so quiet that it frightened me.”

“You will get accustomed to the silence by degrees,” she answered, and led the way towards the staircase.

When they reached the little sitting-room where the fire burnt, Rosalie was pleased to find a white cloth laid there, with supper on it. It was a very plain repast, but cheerful, possibly because of the bright lamp and firelight.

“When do you have your supper?” she asked of Mariana.

“I have had mine.”

“What is the time?”

“Almost ten o’clock.”

“How late! That is the time I generally go to bed. What time do you go?”

“As soon as you are settled for the night I shall retire.”

“Where do you sleep?”

“In the next room to yours. If you want anything in the night, you may ring or come to me.”

“But then I should have to come out on to the corridor. I hate corridors.”

“No. My bedroom opens into yours. Your door that opens into the passage is locked at night.”

“By whom?”

“By me.”

“Why do you lock it?”

“I don’t know, I’m sure. You are safer with it locked, I expect.”

“How long have you lived here, Mariana?”

“Three years this autumn.”

“And how long has Mr. Barringcourt been here?”

“The same length of time. I came with him.”

“And you are happy here?”

“I could not be happier—under the circumstances.”

“Were you ever happier?”

“I think I was once. But it is a very long time ago. I don’t remember how long, so that it cannot really matter.”

“Where did you live before you lived here?”

She shook her head.

“I can’t quite remember. I think it was a very cold and dark place, and one day Mr. Barringcourt came and asked me would I like to go away.”

“And you accepted?”

“Yes. I wanted to get warm again.”

“And are you warm?”

“Yes. Every Wednesday night. If it were not for that I should grow cold again.”

A silence. Then:

“Who lived here before Mr. Barringcourt?”

“A man who died. His name was Geoffrey Todbrook.”

“What?”

“Geoffrey Todbrook.”

“Why, he’s the man who started homes for incurables. There was one for the dumb and deaf and blind. I should have gone there.”

“I have heard he was very charitable. He left this house to Mr. Barringcourt.”

“Were they related?”

“No; I rather think myself the Master had let it to him on a lease. Then when the lease expired he died, and left a will to smooth all difficulties.”

“Was Mr. Barringcourt living in the city before Mr. Todbrook’s death?”

“Oh, no! I don’t think he had ever been here before. He took me to the opera one Wednesday night, and he said it was only the second time he had been there.”

“The opera? Did you like it?”

“Yes, I liked it; but it made my head ache. I was trying to remember something all the time.”

“Do you often go out with him?”

“Oh, no; that would be to get oneself talked about. Besides, so long as we remain here, I am but a servant.”

“Why does Mr. Barringcourt keep me here?”

“I expect you have some secret he wishes to discover, otherwise he would not trouble himself about you. When he took me to the opera it was to discover something.”

“What?”

“I don’t know.”

“Then how can you tell?”

“Because, up to the time we went, and through the performance, he was very affable to me. Afterwards he took no more notice of me, and never has done.”

“Don’t you hate him?”

“Why should I? I had no secret. His conduct was permissible; and I had rather be left alone.”

“And what secret can I have that he should be agreeable to me?”

“I cannot tell. Perhaps, like me, you have none. But if you have, rest assured you will not leave this house till it has been discovered.”

“Have you ever had anyone staying here before in the same way that I am?”

“Not in my time. People with secrets worth knowing are few and far between.”

“Then what can make the Master think such an insignificant person as I could hold a secret?”

“I cannot tell. I only said it might be so; there is no other reason why he should tolerate your company?”

Rosalie laughed, despite a very uneasy feeling in her mind.

“Do you ever have company here?”

“Yes. Last Christmas there was a ball, and we had two or three dinner parties and entertainments. Lady Flamington generally acts as hostess. She and Sir James are very friendly with Mr. Barringcourt.”

“What is she like?”

“Very beautiful, I think, with very pleasing manners. She must be so to please the Master; he is so hard to please.”

“Perhaps she has a secret?”

“Oh, no; I hardly think so. He makes a convenience of her.”

“Good gracious!” and Rosalie laughed. “You don’t give him an enviable character.”

“I speak as truthfully as my perceptions allow me; but at times I may be wrong.”

“And does she not resent being made a convenience of?”

“No; it is only self-respect that keeps her from falling in love with him.”

“Is he then so agreeable to her?”

“He gives her everything that is not worth the having.”

“What do you mean?”

“He gives her everything but love.”

“But that, with a husband, no one would want.”

Mariana’s eyebrows rose. “There are double marriages on Lucifram, I’m given to understand.”

“Yes; but no one thinks much of a woman who marries twice, unless she is a widow.”

“Indeed,” Mariana answered, and was silent.

“But is Mr. Barringcourt fond of no one?” Rosalie pursued.

“I never heard of anyone. He is cold and proud, and often takes no trouble to hide it.”

“But then there are so many good and beautiful women in the world.”

“They find partners, perhaps, that need them more.”

After another silence Rosalie continued: “And Mr. Todbrook—what did he die of?”

“I think he went down the back staircase.”

“In his own house?”

“Yes.”

“What do you mean?”

“He died.”

“In which room?”

“The one the Master sleeps in now. There is a portrait of him in the picture-gallery. To-morrow you shall see it.”

“What did he die of?”

“He had quick ears. He heard the spirit voices calling, and he went to them.”

“Painlessly?”

“Like one sailing on a sea of glass. They say his end was merciful; and I know it was. He suffered nothing—he suffers nothing now.”

“Is he in heaven?”

“I doubt there was too little pain for that; but yet I cannot tell. He may have suffered previously. Men’s lives are strange. And the roughest rocks are coated by smooth waters. They keep their secrets all too well.”

“I’m tired, Mariana. Shall we go to bed?”

“Yes. When you wish it.”

So they rose and went together to the bedroom, which had a chilly air in it after the cosy room. When at last Rosalie was in bed, Mariana smoothed the coverlet and tucked the bed-clothes in.

“Leave me a light, won’t you?”

“Yes; I’ll put it on this table. But there is nothing to fear. An easy conscience may sleep well here, secure from harm.” She moved away, but after a few steps returned. She stooped over the bed and kissed Rosalie’s brow. “Good-night, little one. Sleep peacefully till daybreak.” And then she went away.

Big tears rose in Rosalie’s eyes, for the words had awakened in her a terrible longing for love and companionship, stronger and more powerful than ever Mariana, in her terribly set existence, could ever know how to give. For Rosalie felt that she was even now the stronger of the two, and wept for Mariana’s solitude as well as her own.

CHAPTER XI
GARDEN AND HOUSE OF SHADOWS

The next morning the sensation of waking in such fine surroundings had lost all its charm. Rosalie awoke with a dull leaden pain at her heart, that gained rather than lost power as she recalled one by one the articles of furniture in this new home. The long mirror had lost its fascination; so had the silken bed-hangings. She did not jump out of bed, but rather lay there idly, with no wish to rise; oppressed with such a heaviness that to lie still seemed the only ease from all those aches and pains that twine around a heavy heart. As the grey light of early morning brightened and broadened, she curled in among the bed-clothes, and shut her eyes.

“If only they would let me lie here, and not disturb me! I would never disturb them, I’m sure. I feel so weary that the least exertion is the biggest effort.”

Then she lay very still for a long time, till at last Mariana knocked at the door and opened it, bringing the customary cup of tea.

“I feel so tired, Mariana,” Rosalie said, “and there’s nothing to do. Don’t you think I might spend the day in bed?”

“It is against the rules.”

“Who makes all the rules here?”

“The Master.”

“But he has gone away till to-morrow.”

“That does not excuse us.”

“But he would never know unless you told. I am tired, really, Mariana. I could just lie still, and never move an inch all day.”

“You must get up.”

“When I get up my heart aches.”

“That does not enter into the consideration of the rule. You must get up, or you will be shaken out when the bed is made.”

So very reluctantly Rosalie rose, with a day of nothingness and imprisonment before her. She was dressed in about the same time as yesterday, had breakfast served in the same room in the same way, and then walked out on to the corridor aimlessly and disconsolately.

Mariana had disappeared. Although Rosalie tried every door along the corridor she could not find her. Many of these were locked, and others she discovered to be bedrooms, furnished much as her own, with the exception of the little sitting-room and the room in which she had her meals.

At last, weary of this, she passed out to the high gallery overreaching the square central hall. She walked round it, and tried various doors leading off from it, but all were locked. Below, the dim hall lay in silence. Nothing of light or life was there, though it was not yet mid-day. She looked down over the high oaken balustrade, and sighed, and the echo brought her sigh back to her. She whispered “Rosalie”; the word ran round the arching dome, and then returned—a mocking, hollow voice within the silence. So the morning crept away, with no brightness to speed its dragging hours, no companionship, no occupation. Not a sound fell on her ear. So still was everything, the house might have been a City of the Dead.

At dinner-time she ate mechanically the food they placed before her. To refuse was simply to raise up insistence. Then she withdrew to the little sitting-room, to idle away what time would go, to find after endless waiting that scarcely an hour had passed. Then she got up and went back to the bedroom to bring her hat, and with the same difficulty as the day before, reached with safety the foot of the spiral staircase.

The doorkeeper was sitting not far away from it, reading a paper. She went towards him, and as she approached him he looked up, and then rose from his seat.

“Would you mind telling me which way I should go to find the garden?” she asked.

“Certainly. If you will come this way I will take you.”

Rosalie smiled sadly.

“Suppose somebody got out or in whilst you are away?”

“No one would wish to go out, and the door only opens from within,” he answered.

He walked across the hall, and she followed him to the glass door behind the staircase. This door likewise entered upon a corridor with doors leading from either side of it. The house seemed all doors, but at the farther end a spacious fernery opened out, the curtains (of deep red) which shut it off being now looped and drawn back, so that much beyond was visible. Through the magnificent fern-house he led her till they came to a door of glass leading down into the garden beyond.

The doorkeeper opened it, and let her pass through, himself following.

Outside, broad flights of steps descended by terraces to a lawn of smoothest grass. The terraces were paved in large squares of black and white marble, and from the central one a huge fountain was sending up showers of sparkling water to meet the brilliant sun. Beds of flowers, all of colours resembling scarlet geraniums, were laid out bordering the side walks. One magnificent bed of what looked like crimson gladioli ran up a steep bank bordering the left-hand wall. The high walls themselves were covered with creepers, all of brilliant red, just as autumn leaves are often found, and the only relief afforded was that of the dark foliage of the trees that clustered willow fashion in the rear portion of the garden. This was a kind of wooded avenue along which a carriage drive led from the big gates in the outer wall round to those stables where the Master’s favourite horses were.

“This is the garden,” said her companion, when he had brought her so far; “you will return any time before five. After that the doors are locked.”

When Rosalie was left alone she walked across the lawn slowly, taking in all the beauty and striking nature of the scene. The gardens were large. The avenue and shrubbery beyond were shaded, and provided with many rustic and artistic seats. Rosalie walked along the carriage drive as far as she could, and then a sudden and unaccountable gloom seemed to fall upon her and all things. Just then a sudden bend in the road brought her full in view of the stables. It seemed to her for one instant as if against the gloom surrounding her they shone out in flashing whiteness. They were flat-roofed, though high, and the strong pillars supporting and ornamenting the building were an exact fac-simile of those used in the decoration of the temple.

And standing there looking at it, Rosalie smiled.

“I wonder whose idea that was?” she thought. “A devout architect and designer would never have thought of such a thing. But perhaps I’m mistaken; this may be a private place of worship. I’ll go on and see.”

So she advanced as far as the building; but whether it were stable or chapel she could not tell, for it possessed no doorway. She walked around it as far as she could on either side, till prevented by a wall of great height, but found nothing to serve as a clue as to the nature of its use. No sound came from within—none of the odour that generally characterises such places, either of sanctity or horses—and for the third time Rosalie walked round with growing curiosity. Marble, marble, all was marble, cold and hard and lifeless.

“I really think granite would be a welcome change,” she said, and sighed and walked away.

But it was really pleasant and enjoyable to be in the open air. To be able to look up at a sky that belonged in common to prisoners and free men, there was some little consolation in that.

As she emerged once more from the wooded avenue, her eye fell full on the house. She was surprised and startled at its beauty, viewed thus from the back. Whereas looking at it from the street it showed as nothing but a large square mansion, almost ugly in its plainness, it was from here one of the most graceful and artistic buildings she had ever seen. It was turreted and towered, with polished oriel windows, shining with a lustre all their own against the dusky background of dark marble. The windows on the basement all opened on the ground.

“I believe this is the front, and the front is the back,” thought she. “A kind of topsy-turvy, like the rest of things. What a magnificent door!”

This last expression escaped her involuntarily and aloud.

The door from which she had come was a small side one leading from the conservatory of palms and ferns, but in the centre of this huge construction of glass was a double door of thick carved glass, or some substance very like it, of fine workmanship and execution.

Rosalie went up the many steps towards it, passing the silver fountain that fell with almost a merry sound into the marble basin. Both leaves of the door were shut, and the carving represented was that of a temple, the inner portion, with arched aisles and fluted pillars, and in the centre an altar, with above it the image of a toad. Below it, on the steps outside the customary railing, bowed figures knelt in bare feet, their shoes and stockings at some considerable distance. The representation was comprehensive. Each figure and detail was drawn with great exactness and clearness. The curious polish it possessed was its most striking feature, especially that brilliancy radiating from the toad. Rosalie bent her eyes closer to it, shuddered to find that there was something horribly repulsive in such an animal, and then found herself attracted by the light shining from its head. Its eyes were meaningless and staring, even in the carved picture, but from its head, and this she only discovered after steady looking, the light shone very curiously. Instead of the white light of the rest, this was almost red. Just a faint tinge of red! All the rest, carved as it were from blocks of ice, was utterly lifeless. Yet it was this tinge of colour, so subtly introduced, which made the whole great difference between an uninteresting and an interesting thing. At last she left it and looked down once more into the garden. She saw that several narrow paths led into the shrubberies at the sides. But what struck her attention most was that glorious rising bank of scarlet lilies and harebells and gladioli, that extended right down one side to the wooded avenue beyond, and reached almost to the height of the wall.

She perceived a narrow winding path led up this bank to its summit, and there a garden seat was placed. This was the highest point of vantage in the garden.

“I believe if I could only get up there I should be able to see away over the opposite wall, for it’s lower!” she cried excitedly. “Oh, how glorious to be able to see the city and everything! I’ll go.”

But alas! from the times of Cinderella downwards, clocks have often had a knack of striking at an awkward time. And now there came the sound of chimes, the silver warning, and then the five plain strokes that told the closing hour of fettered liberty.

Rosalie re-entered the house. In the central hall she met Mariana coming from the entrance door in hat and jacket, and carrying a muff.

“Where have you been?” she cried, running across to her.

“Out for a walk.”

“Oh, Mariana! What a shame never to tell me, and never to take me!” And she took hold of her hands hungrily, and kissed her on either cheek.

“Why do you kiss me?” the other asked, smiling.

“To try to get some real fresh air into my lips.”

“It is not very fresh. There is quite a fog coming on.”

“Ah! But it’s free air. I feel all the better just for kissing you. But why do you never take me?”

“It is against the rules.”

“But why can you go, and not I?”

“I’m sure I don’t know. See, I have brought you some sweets,” and Mariana held out a very pretty box containing a delicious assortment of chocolates.

Rosalie took it, somehow more touched than she liked to show by this simple little act of graciousness.

“Come and sit with me after tea, and let us eat them together.”

“I am afraid I cannot. I am always busy in the evening.”

“What are you doing?”