g," said Gwent--"To some it may be
heaven,--but to others--"

"The worser place!"--agreed Lydia--"And Morgana is not like ordinary
women. I wonder what she's doing, and when we shall see her again?"

"Yes--I wonder!" Gwent responded vaguely,--and the subject dropped.

They might have had more than ordinary cause to "wonder" had they been
able to form even a guess as to the manner and intentions of life held
by the strange half spiritual creature whom they imagined to be but an
ordinary mortal moved by the same ephemeral aims and desires as the
rest of the grosser world. Who,--even among scientists, accustomed as
they are to study the evolution of grubs into lovely rainbow-winged
shapes, and the transformation of ordinary weeds into exquisite flowers
of perfect form and glorious colour, goes far enough or deep enough to
realise similar capability of transformation in a human organism
self-trained to so evolve and develop itself? Who, at this time of
day,--even with the hourly vivid flashes kindled by the research lamps
of science, reverts to former theories of men like De Gabalis, who held
that beings in process of finer evolution and formation, and known as
"elementals," nourishing their own growth into exquisite existence,
through the radio-force of air and fire, may be among us, all
unrecognised, yet working their way out of lowness to highness,
indifferent to worldly loves, pleasures and opinions, and only bent on
the attainment of immortal life? Such beliefs serve only as material
for the scoffer and iconoclast,--nevertheless they may be true for all
that, and may in the end confound the mockery of materialism which in
itself is nothing but the deep shadow cast by a great light.

The strangest and most dramatic happenings have the knack of settling
down into the commonplace,--and so in due course the days at the
Palazzo d'Oro went on tranquilly,--Manella being established there and
known as "la bella Signora Seaton" by the natives of the little
surrounding villages, who were gradually brought to understand the
helpless condition of her husband and pitied her accordingly. Lady
Kingswood had agreed to stay as friend and protectress to the girl as
long as Morgana desired it,--indeed she had no wish to leave the
beautiful Sicilian home she had so fortunately found, and where she was
treated with so much kindness and consideration.

There was no lack or stint of wealth to carry out every arranged plan,
and Manella w