who, I am sure, was very good, and she took in a paper
every week that was full of prophecies and things very like this. Nobody
called her mad, and I have heard father say that she had one of the
sharpest heads for business he had ever come across.'

'Very good; have it as you like. But I believe we shall both be sorry.'

They sat in silence for some time. Alice came in after her 'evening
out,' and they sat on, till Mrs. Darnell said she was tired and wanted
to go to bed.

Her husband kissed her. 'I don't think I will come up just yet,' he
said; 'you go to sleep, dearest. I want to think things over. No, no; I
am not going to change my mind: your aunt shall come, as I said. But
there are one or two things I should like to get settled in my mind.'

He meditated for a long while, pacing up and down the room. Light after
light was extinguished in Edna Road, and the people of the suburb slept
all around him, but still the gas was alight in Darnell's drawing-room,
and he walked softly up and down the floor. He was thinking that about
the life of Mary and himself, which had been so quiet, there seemed to
be gathering on all sides grotesque and fantastic shapes, omens of
confusion and disorder, threats of madness; a strange company from
another world. It was as if into the quiet, sleeping streets of some
little ancient town among the hills there had come from afar the sound
of drum and pipe, snatches of wild song, and there had burst into the
market-place the mad company of the players, strangely bedizened,
dancing a furious measure to their hurrying music, drawing forth the
citizens from their sheltered homes and peaceful lives, and alluring
them to mingle in the significant figures of their dance.

Yet afar and near (for it was hidden in his heart) he beheld the glimmer
of a sure and constant star. Beneath, darkness came on, and mists and
shadows closed about the town. The red, flickering flame of torches was
kindled in the midst of it. The song grew louder, with more insistent,
magical tones, surging and falling in unearthly modulations, the very
speech of incantation; and the drum beat madly, and the pipe shrilled to
a scream, summoning all to issue forth, to leave their peaceful hearths;
for a strange rite was preconized in their midst. The streets that were
wont to be so still, so hushed with the cool and tranquil veils of
darkness, asleep beneath the patronage of the evening star, now danced
with glimmering lantern