ave
accounted in itself for the way my heart beat. I controlled myself, and
stood as though I, too, were a graven image. I was rewarded by seeing
presently another gleam of white. And then an unspeakable rapture stole
over me as I realized that my Lady was coming as she had come before. I
would have hurried out to meet her, but that I knew well that this would
not be in accord with her wishes. So, thinking to please her, I drew
back into the room. I was glad I had done so when, from the dark corner
where I stood, I saw her steal up the marble steps and stand timidly
looking in at the door. Then, after a long pause, came a whisper as
faint and sweet as the music of a distant AEolian harp:

"Are you there? May I come in? Answer me! I am lonely and in fear!"
For answer I emerged from my dim corner so swiftly that she was startled.
I could hear from the quivering intake of her breath that she was
striving--happily with success--to suppress a shriek.

"Come in," I said quietly. "I was waiting for you, for I felt that you
would come. I only came in from the terrace when I saw you coming, lest
you might fear that anyone might see us. That is not possible, but I
thought you wished that I should be careful."

"I did--I do," she answered in a low, sweet voice, but very firmly. "But
never avoid precaution. There is nothing that may not happen here.
There may be eyes where we least expect--or suspect them." As she spoke
the last words solemnly and in a low whisper, she was entering the room.
I closed the glass door and bolted it, rolled back the steel grille, and
pulled the heavy curtain. Then, when I had lit a candle, I went over and
put a light to the fire. In a few seconds the dry wood had caught, and
the flames were beginning to rise and crackle. She had not objected to
my closing the window and drawing the curtain; neither did she make any
comment on my lighting the fire. She simply acquiesced in it, as though
it was now a matter of course. When I made the pile of cushions before
it as on the occasion of her last visit, she sank down on them, and held
out her white, trembling hands to the warmth.

She was different to-night from what she had been on either of the two
former visits. From her present bearing I arrived at some gauge of her
self-concern, her self-respect. Now that she was dry, and not
overmastered by wet and cold, a sweet and gracious dignity seemed to
shine from her, enwrapping her, as i