Baker were not with us; they had found a way through that
_impasse_, although we could not, and were sitting high above us on a
white wall in the sunshine, when, breathless, we at last emerged from
the labyrinth and discovered them.

"That looks like a cemetery," said Mrs. Trescott, disapprovingly,
disentangling her lace shawl from a bush. "You _said_ it was a castle."
She addressed the Professor, and with some asperity; she did not like
cemeteries.

"It was the castle," explained our learned guide; "the castle erected in
1502, by one of the Princes, upon the site of a still earlier one, built
in 1250."

"That Prince used the ruins of his ancestors as his descendants
afterwards used his," observed Margaret, referring to the mansion in the
street below.

"Possibly," said the Professor. He never gave Margaret more than a
possibility; although a man of hyphens and semicolons, he generally
dismissed her with an early period. "These old arches and buttresses,"
he continued, turning to Mrs. Trescott, "were once part of the castle.
Turreted walls extended from here down to the sea."

"What they did once, of course I do not know," said Mrs. Trescott,
implacably, "but now they plainly enclose a cemetery. Janet! Janet! come
down! we are going back." And she turned to descend.

"The cemetery is a lovely spot," said Mrs. Clary, as we lingered a
moment looking at the white marble crosses gleaming above us, outlined
against the blue sky.

[Illustration: THE CORNICE ROAD, MENTONE]

"Some other time," I answered, following Mrs. Trescott. For the quiet,
lovely gardens where we lay our dead had too strong an attraction for
Margaret already. She was fond of lingering amid their perfume and their
silence, and she sought this one the next day, and afterwards often
went there. It was a peculiar little cemetery, alone on the height, and
walled like a fortress; but it was beautiful in its way, lifted up
against the sky and overlooking the sea. On the eastern edge was a
monument, the seated figure of a woman with her hands gently clasped,
her eyes gazing over the water; the face was lovely, and not
idealized--the face of a woman, not an angel. Margaret took a fancy to
this white watcher on the height, and often stole away to look at the
sunset, seated near it. I think she identified its loneliness somewhat
with herself.

We went through the labyrinth again, but by another route, not quite so
dark and piratical, although equally nar