rnment in the
province nearest to us."

When the girl got up, the Oriental also rose. He stood awkwardly, his
body stooped; his hand as for support resting on the corner of the
table. The girl spoke again, in the same posture. Her face toward the
fire.

"How do you feel about Lord Eckhart?"

"Feel!" The man repeated the word.

He hesitated a little.

"We trusted Lord Eckhart. We have found all English honorable."

"Lord Eckhart is partly German," the girl went on.

The man's voice in reply was like a foot-note to a discourse.

"Ah!" He drawled the expletive as though it were some Oriental word.

The girl continued. "You have perhaps heard that a marriage is arranged
between us."

Her voice was steady, low, without emotion.

For a long time there was utter silence in the room.

Then, finally, when the Oriental spoke his voice had changed. It was
gentle, and packed with sympathy. It was like a voice within the gate of
a confessional.

"Do you love him?" it said.

"I do not know."

The vast sympathy in the voice continued. "You do not know?--it is
impossible! Love is or it is not. It is the longing of elements torn
asunder, at the beginning of things, to be rejoined."

The girl turned swiftly, her body erect, her face lifted.

"But this great act," she cried. "My father, I, all of our blood, are
moved by romance--by the romance of sacrifice. Look how my father died
seeking an antidote for the pain of the world. How shall I meet this
sacrifice of Lord Eckhart?"

Something strange began to dawn in the wide Mongolian face.

"What sacrifice?"

The girl came over swiftly to the table. She scattered the mass of
jewels with a swift gesture.

"Did he not give everything he possessed, everything piece by piece, for
this?"

She took the necklace up and twisted it around her fingers. Her hands
appeared to be a mass of rubies.

A great light came into the Oriental's face.

"The necklace," he said, "is a present to you from the Dalai Lama. It
was entrusted to Lord Eckhart to deliver."

XV. Satire of the Sea

"What was the mystery about St. Alban?" I asked.

The Baronet did not at once reply. He looked out over the English
country through the ancient oak-trees, above the sweep of meadow across
the dark, creeping river, to the white shaft rising beyond the wooded
hills into the sky.

The war was over. I was a guest of Sir Henry Marquis for a week-end at
his country-house. The man fascinated me