shall be in the
room to your left at the foot of the stair."

I stood as she left me, accusing my presumption: how was I to treat
this lovely woman as a thing of evil, who behaved to me like a
sister?--Whence the marvellous change in her? She left me with a blow;
she received me almost with an embrace! She had reviled me; she said
she knew I would follow and find her! Did she know my doubts concerning
her--how much I should want explained? COULD she explain all? Could I
believe her if she did? As to her hospitality, I had surely earned
and might accept that--at least until I came to a definite judgment
concerning her!

Could such beauty as I saw, and such wickedness as I suspected, exist
in the same person? If they could, HOW was it possible? Unable to answer
the former question, I must let the latter wait!

Clear as crystal, the water in the great white bath sent a sparkling
flash from the corner where it lay sunk in the marble floor, and seemed
to invite me to its embrace. Except the hot stream, two draughts in the
cottage of the veiled woman, and the pools in the track of the wounded
leopardess, I had not seen water since leaving home: it looked a thing
celestial. I plunged in.

Immediately my brain was filled with an odour strange and delicate,
which yet I did not altogether like. It made me doubt the princess
afresh: had she medicated it? had she enchanted it? was she in any way
working on me unlawfully? And how was there water in the palace, and not
a drop in the city? I remembered the crushed paw of the leopardess, and
sprang from the bath.

What had I been bathing in? Again I saw the fleeing mother, again I
heard the howl, again I saw the limping beast. But what matter whence it
flowed? was not the water sweet? Was it not very water the pitcher-plant
secreted from its heart, and stored for the weary traveller? Water came
from heaven: what mattered the well where it gathered, or the spring
whence it burst? But I did not re-enter the bath.

I put on the robe of white wool, embroidered on the neck and hem, that
lay ready for me, and went down the stair to the room whither my hostess
had directed me. It was round, all of alabaster, and without a single
window: the light came through everywhere, a soft, pearly shimmer rather
than shine. Vague shadowy forms went flitting about over the walls and
low dome, like loose rain-clouds over a grey-blue sky.

The princess stood waiting me, in a robe embroidered with ar