in shadow, David saw a crudely made high-chair--a baby's
chair--and on it were a little knife and fork, a baby spoon, and a
little tin plate. It was astounding. Perfectly incredible. And David's
eyes sought questingly for a door through which a woman might come and
go mysteriously and unseen. There was none, and the one window of the
room was so high up that a person standing on the ground outside could
not look in.

And now it began to dawn upon David that all these things he was looking
at were old--very old. In the Chateau the Missioner no longer ate on tin
plates. The shoes and slippers must have been made a generation ago. The
rag carpet under his feet had lost its vivid lines of colouring. Age
impressed itself upon him. This was a woman's room, but the woman had
not been here recently. And the child had not been here recently.

For the first time his eyes turned in a closer inspection of the table
on which stood the big brass lamp. Father Roland's violin lay beside it.
He made a step or two nearer, so that he could see beyond the lamp, and
his heart gave a sudden jump. Shimmering on the faded red cloth of the
table, glowing as brightly as though it had been clipped from a woman's
head but yesterday, was a long, thick tress of hair! It was dark, richly
dark, and his second impression was one of amazement at the length of
it. The tress was as long as the table--fully a yard down the woman's
back it must have hung. It was tied at the end with a bit of white
ribbon.

David drew slowly back toward the door, stirred all at once by a great
doubt. Had Father Roland meant him to look upon all this? A lump rose
suddenly in his throat. He had made a mistake--a great mistake. He felt
now like one who had broken into the sanctity of a sacred place. He had
committed sacrilege. The Missioner had not dropped the key purposely. It
must have been an accident. And he--David--was guilty of a great
blunder. He withdrew from the room, and locked the door. He dropped the
key where he had found it on the floor, and sat down again with his
book. He did not read. He scarcely saw the lines of the printed page. He
had not been in his chair more than ten minutes when he heard quick
footsteps, followed by a hand at the door, and Father Roland came in. He
was visibly excited, and his glance shot at once to the room which David
had just left. Then his eyes scanned the floor. The key was gleaming
where it had fallen, and with an exclamation of