e patient's recent
improvement had been due, no doubt, to one of those rallies that may
interrupt the progress of many diseases--though in a case of this sort,
whether due to a functional or a pathological cause, Dr. Fallows had
never seen nor heard of an arrest--much less a diminution--of the
general weakness.

But now the relapse was complete.

She was aware of a lot of fluted wainscotting around her, and, beyond
Dr. Fallows' head, a Tudor staircase in silhouette against a large bay
window of many leaded panes. Some of these panes, of stained glass in
heraldic patterns, gleamed against a passing cloud like rubies,
emeralds, and sapphires that had lost their fire. Dr. Fallows still
blocked her way--almost another Brantome!--engrossed in his pessimistic
peroration, his visage of an urbane, successful man full of complicated
satisfactions and regrets. Behind him the staircase was suddenly
bathed in sunshine; all the panes of stained glass became sparkling and
rich; and a sheaf of prismatic rays stretched down, through the gloom
of the hall, toward Lilla's upturned face.

She sped up the staircase.

All that she saw was the four-post bedstead canopied with cretonne, the
face on the pillow. At her approach, a thrill passed through the air
pervaded by the stagnation of his spirit. He opened his eyes.

"You! I thought I had unchained you."

She knelt down beside him, and asked:

"What have I done to deserve this?"

He managed to respond:

"You deserve more, perhaps--a worldful of blessings. But this release
is all that I have to give you."

"Do you think I care for that man? I even hate him now, if it's he who
has brought you to this."

He looked like a soul that sees an angel hovering on the threshold of
hell, promising salvation.

"Oh, if I could believe you!"

And all the propulsions that had brought this moment to pass now forced
from her lips:

"I am here to prove it in a way that you can never doubt."

That day, at twilight, she standing beside his bed, they were married.

CHAPTER XXX

Beyond seas, deserts, and snow-capped mountain peaks, in the equatorial
forests where the Mambava spearmen dwelt unconquered, the black king,
Muene-Motapa, sat in the royal house listening to a story teller.

The king sat on an ebony stool, in a haze of wood smoke, muffled in a
cape of monkey skin embroidered with steel beads; for while it was
summer in America it was winter in his land. Behind him,