sped them, smoothed the brocade absently with one hand.
"One or two are leaving early to-morrow. You will see--you will give
instructions that everything is provided for their comfort."

The maid responded and left the room; Jocelyn stood as if wrapped in
reverie. At length she stirred suddenly and extinguishing all but one
dim light, sank back into a chair. Her eyes half closed, then shut
entirely. One might have thought her sleeping, except that her breathing
was not deep enough; the golden head remained motionless against the
soft pink of the dressing-gown; the hand that dropped limply from the
white wrist over the arm of the chair did not stir. Around, all was
stillness; time passed; then a faint shout from somewhere in the
gardens, far off, aroused her. The girl looked around; but immediately
silence again reigned; she got up.

Leaning against the shaft holding one of the marbles, she regarded
without seeing a chaste, youthful Canova, and beyond, painted on boards
and set against satin, a Botticelli face, spiritual, sphinx-like. Her
brows were slightly drawn; she breathed deeply now, as if there were
something in the place, its quiescence, the immobility of the lovely but
ghost-like semblance of faces with which it was peopled that oppressed
her. She seemed to be thinking, or questioning herself, when suddenly
her attention was attracted again by a sound of a different kind, or was
it only fancy? She looked toward a large Flemish tapestry covering one
entire end of the room; behind the antique landscape in green threads
she knew there was a disused door leading into armory hall. Drawing back
the heavy folds she stepped a little behind them; the door was locked
and bolted; moreover, several heavy nails had fastened it, completely
isolating her suite, as it were, from that spacious, general apartment.

Again the sound! This time she placed it--the creaking of the giant
branch of ivy that ran up and around her own balcony. The girl paused
irresolutely, her hand on the heavy ancient hanging. Leaning forward she
waited; but the noise stopped; she heard nothing more, told herself it
was nothing and was about to move out again when her gaze was suddenly
held by something that passed like a shadow--a man's arm?--on the other
side of the nearest window, between the modern French curtains, not
quite drawn together.

In that inconsiderable space between the silk fringes she was sure she
had seen it, and anything suggestive