around him, while his ancestors and hers looked down on them
from the walls, down on their successors. The Lords of Blent were about
him. Their trophies and their treasures decked the room. And she sat
there in Addie Tristram's chair, in Addie Tristram's place, in Addie
Tristram's attitude. Did the dead know the secret? Did the pictures
share it? Who was to them the Lord of Blent?

He shook off these idle fancies--a man should not give way to them--and
walked up the room with a steady assured tread. Even then she did not
seem to hear him till he spoke.

"Well, do you like it?" he asked, leaning against a table in the middle
of the upper part of the room, a few feet from the chair where she sat.
Now Mina Zabriska made out two figures, cast up by the bright light
against the darkness, and watched them with an eagerness that had no
reason in it.

"Like it!" she cried, springing to her feet, running to him, holding out
her hands. "Like it! Oh, Harry! Why, it's better than all the rest.
Better, even better!"

"It's rather a jolly room," said Harry. "The pictures and all the things
about make it look well."

"Oh, I'm not going to say anything if you talk like that. You don't feel
like that!--'Rather a jolly room!' That's what one says if the inn
parlor's comfortable. This isn't a room. It's--it's----"

"Shall we call it a temple?" he suggested, smiling.

"I believe it's heaven--the private particular Tristram heaven. They're
all here!" She waved toward the pictures. "Here in a heaven of their
own."

"And we're allowed to visit it before we die?"

"Yes. At least I am. You let me visit it. It belongs to you--to the dead
and you."

"Do you want to stay here any longer?" he asked with a sudden roughness.

"Yes, lots longer," she laughed defiantly, quite undismayed. "You
needn't, though. You'll have it all your life. Perhaps I shall never
have it again. Father's better! And I don't know if you'll ever ask us
here again. You never did before, you know. So I mean to have all of it
I can get." She darted away from him and ran back to the miniatures. A
richly ornamented sword hung on the wall just above them. This caught
her notice; she took it down and unsheathed it.

"_Henricus Baro Tristram de Blent_," she spelt out from the enamelled
steel. "_Per Ensem Justitia._ What does that mean? No, I know. Rather a
good motto, cousin Harry. 'That he shall take who has the power, and he
shall keep who can!' That was his justice