slowly, almost as if he were thinking of something else,
and the thought rather hurt him:

"I see your only thought is to gain some point for yourself--you alone
know what--no matter what pain your silence may give to others.... Ah,
that's sad...."

Angry and a little frightened, too, Carlisle Heth drew her gossamer
shawl more closely about her shoulders, with a movement that also wore
the air of plucking together her somewhat wavering hauteur.

"You are at liberty to think and say what you please," she said,
distantly, and with a slight inclination of her head started past him.

But he did not seem to hear the dismissal order; stood unmoving,
blocking her progress; and looking up with now tremulous indignation,
Carlisle ran once more full on the battery of his speaking eyes....

Perhaps it was not difficult to guess what John the Baptist would have
said, in such a case as this: but then the young man V.V. was not
thinking of John the Baptist now. He was not feeling grim at all at this
moment; not fierce at all. So in his look there was to be seen nothing
of the whiplash, not one thing reminiscent of the abhorring fanatic on
the outskirts of the city. His eyes were filled, indeed, with a sudden
compassion; a compassion overflowing, unmistakable, and poignant. And
from that look the richly dressed girl with the seraph's face instantly
averted her gaze.

She heard a voice: the lame stranger speaking as if to himself.

"All that beauty without, and nothing at all within.... So lovely to the
eye, and empty where the heart should be.... God pity you, poor little
thing...."

And then Carlisle passed him quickly and went out of the summer-house
upon the lawn. The escape, this time, presented no difficulties. For the
last syllable had hardly died on the young man's lip before
self-consciousness appeared to return upon him, staggering him, it may
be, at the words of his mouth. He turned, abruptly, and fled in the
other direction.

So the audience in the moonlit summer-house concluded precipitately,
with the simultaneous departure of both parties from opposite exits.
Carlisle Heth went hurrying across the lawn. Within her, there was a
tumult; but her will was not feeble, and her sense of decorum and the
eternally fitting hardly less tenacious. Strongly she ruled her spirit
for the revivifying remeeting that awaited her just ahead....

But it was not Mr. Canning's voice which greeted her as she stepped up
on the hotel