crucifix mounted on a stand, and so placed that
anyone seated at the piano faced it. The room was lit not strongly by
oil lamps with shades. A few mysterious oil paintings, very dark in
color, hung on the walls between the bookcases. Mrs. Mansfield could not
discern their subjects. On the high wooden mantelpiece there were a few
photographs, of professors and students at the Royal College of Music
and of a serious and innocent-looking priest in black coat and round
white collar.

To Mrs. Mansfield the room suggested a recluse who liked to be cosy,
who, perhaps, was drawn toward mystery, even mysticism, and who loved
the life of the brain.

"And you've a garden?" she asked, breaking the little pause.

"The size of a large pocket-handkerchief. I'm not at all rich, you know.
But I can just afford my little house and to live without earning a
penny."

A woman servant, not Mrs. Searle, came in with tea and retreated,
walking very softly and slowly. She looked almost rustic.

"That's my only other servant, Harriet," said Heath, pouring out tea.

"There's something very un-Londony in it all," said Mrs. Mansfield,
again looking round, almost with a puzzled air.

"That's what I try for. I'm fond of London in a way, but I can't bear
anything typical of London in my home."

"It is quite a home," she said; "and the home of a worker. One gets
weary of being received in reception-rooms. This is a retreat."

Heath looked at her with his bright almost too searching and observant
eyes.

"I wonder," he said almost reluctantly, "whether--may I talk about
myself to-day?" he interrupted himself.

"Do, if you like to."

"I think I should."

"Do, then."

"I wonder whether a man is a coward to raise up barriers between himself
and life, whether it is a mistake to have a retreat, as you rightly call
this room, this house, and to spend the greater part of one's time alone
in it? But"--he moved restlessly--"the real question is whether one
ought to let oneself be guided by a powerful instinct."

"I expect one ought to."

"Do you? Oh, you're not eating anything!"

"I will help myself."

"Mrs. Shiffney wouldn't agree with you."

"No."

"Didn't--didn't you see her? She went just before you came."

"I saw someone. I thought it might be Adelaide. I wasn't sure."

"It was she. I hadn't asked her to come and wasn't expecting her."

He stopped, then added abruptly:

"It was wonderfully kind of her to come, though. She is