place was inundated with artificial light that shamed the newborn day.
And as we went through the throng the people turned about and looked at
us, for all through the world my name and face were known, and how I had
suddenly thrown up pride and struggle to come to this place. And they
looked also at the lady beside me, though half the story of how at last
she had come to me was unknown or mistold. And few of the men who were
there, I know, but judged me a happy man, in spite of all the shame and
dishonour that had come upon my name.

"The air was full of music, full of harmonious scents, full of the
rhythm of beautiful motions. Thousands of beautiful people swarmed about
the hall, crowded the galleries, sat in a myriad recesses; they were
dressed in splendid colours and crowned with flowers; thousands danced
about the great circle beneath the white images of the ancient gods, and
glorious processions of youths and maidens came and went. We two danced,
not the dreary monotonies of your days--of this time, I mean--but
dances that were beautiful, intoxicating. And even now I can see my lady
dancing--dancing joyously. She danced, you know, with a serious face;
she danced with a serious dignity, and yet she was smiling at me and
caressing me--smiling and caressing with her eyes.

"The music was different," he murmured. "It went--I cannot describe it;
but it was infinitely richer and more varied than any music that has
ever come to me awake.

"And then--it was when we had done dancing--a man came to speak to
me. He was a lean, resolute man, very soberly clad for that place, and
already I had marked his face watching me in the breakfasting hall, and
afterwards as we went along the passage I had avoided his eye. But now,
as we sat in a little alcove, smiling at the pleasure of all the people
who went to and fro across the shining floor, he came and touched me,
and spoke to me so that I was forced to listen. And he asked that he
might speak to me for a little time apart.

"'No,' I said. 'I have no secrets from this lady. What do you want to
tell me?'

"He said it was a trivial matter, or at least a dry matter, for a lady
to hear.

"'Perhaps for me to hear,' said I.

"He glanced at her, as though almost he would appeal to her. Then he
asked me suddenly if I had heard of a great and avenging declaration
that Evesham had made. Now, Evesham had always before been the man next
to myself in the leadership of that great party