erior to pieces in search of the key. The very pillows
under the head of the Keeper had been stabbed and ransacked. It was
nearing daybreak when the Keeper awoke, groggy from the effects of the
narcotic. The guard was roused. The whole place was in confusion. The
robbers had fled, leaving the great golden knocker on the door hanging
from its position; they were removing it when surprised. The nymphs were
untouched. The voice of the Keeper of the Key was deliberate,
authoritative, commanding, amid the confusion. The legs of the guards
quaked beneath them, their heads swam, and they said to each other, "Now
surely is the key gone!" But their master hurried them to their morning
duty, and they escorted him to the well a little beyond daybreak, and,
lo, at the psychological moment, there was the key and back rolled the
lid from the precious well. "Surely," they said, "this man is blessed,
for the key comes to him as a gift from Heaven. The robbers of the earth
are powerless against him." When the citizens of the Seven Sisters
heard of what had taken place in the evil hours of the night they poured
across the drawbridge from the town and acclaimed the Keeper of the Key
before his mansion. He came out on the watch tower, his daughter by his
side, and with dignified mien acknowledged the acclamations of the
citizens. And before he put the lid on the well that night the deformed
tailor and his pards were all dragged through the streets of the Seven
Sisters and cast into prison.

Never was the popularity of the Keeper at so high a level as after this
episode. They would have declared him the most perfect as the most
powerful of men were it not for one little spot on the bright sun of his
fame. They did not like his domestic habits. The daughter who stood by
his side on the watch tower was a young girl of charm, a fair, frail
maiden, a slender lily under the towering shadow of her dark father. The
citizens did not, perhaps, understand his instincts of paternity; and,
indeed, if they understood them they would not have given them the
sanction of their approval. The people only saw that the young girl, his
only child, was condemned to what they called a life of virtual
imprisonment in the mansion. She was a warm-blooded young creature, and
like all warm-blooded creatures, inclined to gaiety of spirits, to
impulsive friendships to a joyous and engaging frankness. These traits,
the people saw, the father disapproved of and checked, an