d fled for his life.

Safely astride the wall coping he looked back. All was quiet in the
garden, and at that instant a light shone out at an upper window of the
house.

"She is safe," he told himself, and that was enough to know.

As he walked slowly westward, the thought of Ulick came again to him.
Had he really promised the girl that he would tell Ulick nothing?
Ridiculous as it may appear, he could not remember.

XVI

AS IN A LOOKING-GLASS

Arcadia House, while it certainly stood in need of the repairer's hand,
was by no means uninhabitable, a fact which spoke well for the honesty
of its old-time builders. Its oak beams, fastened together with
tree-nails instead of iron spikes, were still sound, and its brick
walls, unusually massive in construction, were without a crack. Most
important of all, the roof, shingled with the best cypress, remained
water-tight, and so protected the interior from the ruinous effects of
moisture. In outward appearance, however, Arcadia House had sadly
degenerated. The stucco that originally covered the outer walls had
fallen away here and there, leaving unsightly patches to vex the eye,
and in many of the windows the glazing had been destroyed either wholly
or in part.

Some years before Quinton Edge had taken possession of this abandoned
Eden. The summers in the city were usually warm, and the Doomsmen were
in the habit of seeking the upper stories of the tall buildings for
relief, just as in the twentieth century people went to the mountains
for the heated term. Quinton Edge, having accidentally discovered
Arcadia House recognized its advantages as a summer residence, and he
had his own reasons for desiring the privacy that its secluded
situation afforded. He was satisfied with putting three or four of the
rooms into livable condition, and as for the rest it was only necessary
to repair the wall surrounding the grounds and stock the storehouses
with fuel and provisions to make of Arcadia House the proverbial castle.
That it _was_ his castle was his own affair, and he had taken care that
only the fewest possible number should be in the secret. Old Kurt and a
couple of negro slave women made up the ordinary domestic staff of the
establishment, and until the advent of Esmay and Nanna, some three
months before, Arcadia House had received no visitors. And he would be a
foolish man who called upon Quinton Edge without an invitation.

Esmay, after parting from Constans, pause