attempt, and then was
surprised at the absurd mistakes made by the automaton, who, in his next
moves, was playing in slipshod fashion, as if preoccupied. I now had the
advantage, and believed that I should win. My triumph was short-lived,
however; my opponent awakened to his danger, and yet perhaps my first
warning of the final move came when the Judge laughed heartily, clapped
me on the shoulder, and pointed toward the board. Another turn made it
plain to me. I had lost.

And at the same moment the infernal Sheik lifted his head with the
clicking of gears, stared at me, drew down one papier-mache eyelid in a
hideous wink and rolled the other glassy eyeball in a complete orbit of
the socket, and as soon as this evil, mechanical grimace had been
accomplished, the head fell forward, the door in the being's chest
opened once more, showing the moving wheels, and again the creature
seemed to become soulless.

"He always rolls his eye at you when he wins," explained Judge Colfax as
we went out into the sunlit street again, and he patted me on the
shoulder in gentle banter.

"I believe I do not like your Sheik machine," said I, laughing
nervously. "I felt all the time as if a hidden pair of human eyes were
on me--as if there was a personality behind it all."

The Judge chuckled.

"But you forget," said he. "Of course there is a person--some man--or
woman. I have often wished to have a look at that person, Estabrook."

As you will see, I have had cause to feel as he did on that memorable
night--memorable because I first sat at table with Julianna--with
Julianna, whose magnificence was not boldness, whose spirit was not
immodesty, and whose gentleness did not rob her of either her beauty or
vivacity.

Though it seems to me that to-night, in the depths of anxiety, I find
myself in love with a new and deeper feeling, there can be no doubt
that, as I looked at her across the table, I thrilled with the thought
that she might one day be my wife, and felt that delicious and painful
ecstasy when her deep eyes met mine and her lips smiled back at me the
encouragement of a modest woman who does not guard too closely her own
first interest in an exchange of ardent glances. I had then forgotten
most fully the theories of my training.

I remember now that she wore a gown of soft and ample drapery and of a
dark green, suggestive of the colors in the shady recesses of a forest.
I was charmed by the shape and subtle motions of her w