h was
all his? Who had known the strength of his arms? Who had found the spell
which would soothe his savage moods to stillness and unloose the
flood-gates of his magic? Whose was the name so sacred that even in
sleep his lips could guard it?

"That is what he wants," she murmured; "some one to love him, to
understand and comfort when he is so black and bitter, and I think it is
what he hath never found. Ah, pray God he may find that one!"

Because she loved, it was given her to understand. And, understanding,
she caught a glimpse of the tragedy of the loneliness in which those
souls must wander whose world is not the world of everyday life and love
and death. Quick tears dimmed her eyes, of pity because she understood;
and one fell warm on the quiet face at her knee.

Nicanor opened his eyes, without moving, but Eldris saw, and sat
stiffened with fear, self-betrayed in her swift flush. He raised himself
on an elbow and looked at her, smiling slightly.

"Thou?" he said, with no surprise in his voice, as though he had thought
of nothing but to find her there. "I thought Nicodemus said thou hadst
not come."

"I did not go to him," said Eldris. "I was at another house a little
while. Now I am taken care of by the priests of Saint Peter's."

Nicanor nodded. His eyes had not left her face.

"Perhaps that is best. Why dost thou weep?"

Eldris flushed again. But his gray eyes were inexorable; they dragged
truth from her in spite of all her will.

"I--thou wert sleeping, and I thought thee ill, and I--was sorry."

"I am not ill," he answered, and his voice was gentle. "But let us speak
of thee. Now I have come, not so soon as I had thought to come. It was
not mine to say what I should do."

[Illustration: "The sight burst upon him in all its hideousness,--where
had been the stately mansion of his lord."]

"You mean--?" Eldris said quickly. "Tell me of it. Tell me all of it, I
pray you!"

Nicanor's eyes changed with the quick sweet smile which at rare times
had power to lighten his face as a shaft of sunshine lights a
thundercloud.

"All?" he repeated indulgently. "So, then, this is the tale."

He sat rocking gently back and forth, hands clasped about his knees,
looking not at her at all, but away over the billowing hills.

"When thou hadst slipped away from the door of that torture room, I and
Hito amused ourselves. And when our game was ended, he had no thought of
thee nor thy escape; me it was upon whom al