imon
were certainly looking for him in the maze of the cemetery; they would
find him soon. It did not seem to him extraordinary that he had left
them in that sudden, swift fashion without a word.

Then he heard, or thought he heard, a noise in the vault, and, summoning
all his strength of will, he descended the steps again and glanced
within. Ravengar was there. Had he been there all the time, hidden
behind the door? Or had he fled and stealthily returned? Only Ravengar
could say. He had taken up the image from the corner and was replacing
it in the coffin. It was as if he had bowed his obstinate purpose to
some higher power which was inscrutable to him. Children and madmen can
practise this singular and surprising fatalism. Disturbed, he raised his
head and caught sight of Hugo. They gazed at one another by the
flickering candle.

'Where's the man who helped you?' Hugo demanded faintly.

He had not much heart, much force, much firmness left. Ravengar's eyes,
at once empty and significant, blank and yet formidable, startled him.
He had the revolver and the handcuffs in his pocket, but he could not
have used them. Ravengar's eyes, so fiendish and so ineffably sad,
melted his spine. Ravengar stepped forward and Hugo stepped back.

'Let me pass,' said Ravengar, in the tone of one who has suffered much
and does not mean to suffer much more.

And Hugo let him pass, inexplicably, weakly; and at the end of a narrow
path he merged into the vague, general darkness. And then Hugo heard the
sound of a struggle, and the voices of Simon and Albert--young and
boisterous and earthly and sane. And then scampering footfalls which
died away in the uttermost parts of the cemetery.

And Camilla sat up, rubbing her eyes.

'It's all right,' he soothed her.

CHAPTER XXVIII

BEAUTY

'Hum! he's going to marry her,' Simon had said, and Albert had said, and
Lily had said. 'I knew it all along.' When, at the end of six months,
Hugo went away, much furnishing of rooms near the Dome took place by his
orders during his absence.

Yet here was Hugo back at the end of the fortnight, radiant certainly,
but alone.

'There was one little matter I forgot,' Hugo began, rather timidly, as
Simon thought, when assured that everything was in order.

'Yes, sir?' said Simon.

'I want you to be good enough to give up your room.'

'My room, sir?'

'To oblige a lady.'

'A lady, sir?'

'I should say a lady's lady.'

Simon paused. He