ttle in hand. The fire, left to itself, cast wavering
gleams upon the dark walls about the court, the bare trodden ground, the
covered well in its centre.

Marcus, seeking Nerissa to give the kettle to her, came to the garden,
and stood in the entrance and looked across it. Further than this even
he dared not venture, since all the space within was sacred to the
lord's daughter and her women. Opposite him, across the open lawn, were
the wide steps, white in the moonlight, leading to the tessellated walk
above. Beyond this, light shone softly from Lady Varia's chamber, half
screened by the tall slender columns of the gallery. The two windows,
reaching to the floor and giving upon the terrace, were open to the warm
air; in the room the lights were low. Marcus saw suddenly the Lady Varia
herself enter the room alone, walking slowly, like one unwilling or
tired. Then he would have gone, lest he be reprimanded; but even as he
turned, the vines along the farther wall rustled, though no wind
stirred. So that Marcus, faithful old watch-dog, drew back in the
shadows and waited, thinking no danger, yet bound to see that all was
well.

This was what he saw: Lady Varia moving within the low-lighted room,
pausing before her dressing-table near the tall silver lamp, to remove
the weight of jewels which loaded her, aimless, and with slow uncertain
steps like a child too weary to know rightly what it does. And from the
darkness by the wall a figure coming with swift silent strides across
the turf to the marble steps, black as a shadow in the moonlight, lean
and lithe and with an untamed shock of hair. The figure stood upon the
lowest step and called softly,--a tender, wordless call which drifted
low across the night and scarcely reached to Marcus's ears. Marcus felt
for the knife-hilt at his belt. But the Lady Varia, within the lighted
room, heard the call, and stepped across the threshold with head raised
and hands hanging at her sides like any sleep-walker, and crossed the
pavement where the moonlight lay in silver, and came down the steps,
slowly, yet hesitating never at all. Marcus, watching in wonder and
fright and awe, saw the black figure lift her hand and kiss it; saw the
two walk hand in hand across the garden into the dusky jungle of tall
shrubbery. So that Marcus was in two minds,--whether to give the alarm
at once, and have the intruder captured, or whether to go up quietly
himself and find out what was going on.

In the