ringly to him; "what in the
world are you doing here?"

The old man looked uncertainly about him, one hand spread against
the pillar behind him, the other fumbling at his throat.

"I think," he answered almost indistinguishably, "I think that I
meant to sit here--to sit in the room beyond, where the mock stars
shine."

Olivia uttered an exclamation.

"How could he possibly know that?" she said.

"But what does he mean?" asked St. George.

She crossed swiftly to a portiere hanging by slender rings from the
full height of the lofty room, and at her bidding St. George
followed her. She pushed aside the curtain, revealing a huge cave of
the dark, a room whose walls were sunk in shadow. But overhead the
ceiling was constellated in stars, so that it seemed to St. George
as if he were looking into a nearer heaven, homing the far lights
that he knew. The Pleiades, Orion, and the Southern Cross, blazing
down with inconceivable brilliance, were caught and held captive in
the cup of this nearer sky.

"It is like this at night," Olivia said, "but we see nothing in the
daytime, save the vague outlines of here and there a star. But how
could he have known? There is no other door save this."

The old man had followed them and stood, his eyes fixed on the
shining points.

"It is done well," he said softly, "it makes one feel the
firmament."

St. George, thrilling with the strangeness of what he saw, and the
strangeness of being there with Olivia and this weird old man of the
mountain, turned toward him almost fearfully. How did he know,
indeed?

"Ah well," he said, striving to reassure her, "I've no doubt he has
wandered in here some evening, while you were at dinner. No doubt--"

He stopped abruptly, his eyes fixed on the old man's hand. For as he
lifted it St. George had thought that something glittered. Without
hesitation he caught the old man's arm about the wrist, and turned
his hand in his own palm. In the thin fingers he found a small
sealed tube, filled with something that looked like particles of
nickel.

"Do you mind telling me what that is?" asked St. George.

Old Malakh's eyes, liquid and brown and very peaceful, met his own
without rebuke.

"Do you mean the gem?" he asked gently. "It is a very beautiful
ruby."

Then St. George saw upon the hand that held the sealed tube a ring
of matchless workmanship, set with a great ruby that smouldered in
the shadow where they stood. Olivia looked at St. George