behind the pedestal of
the bronze Pompeian Antinous, into the dusky shadow of those
ghostly-waving, turquoise, satin curtains.

With a sense of catastrophe upon her Helen had sprung to her
feet.--Even now, standing in the peaceful warmth of the autumn
sunshine, among the feeding pea-fowl, the remembrance of it caused her
a little shiver. For at sight of that gleaming ball hurrying across the
carpet, all the nervousness, the distrust of herself, the vague
spiritual alarms, which had beset her on first entering the room,
returned on her with tenfold force. The superstitious terrors of the
convent-bred girl mastered the light-hearted scepticism of the woman of
the world, and regions of sinister possibility seemed disclosing
themselves around her.

"Oh! how horrible! What does it mean?" she cried.

And Richard answered cheerily, somewhat astonished at her agitation,
trying to reassure her.

"Mean? Nothing, except that I was abominably awkward and the crystal
abominably slippery. What does it matter? We can find it again
directly."

Then, self-forgetful in the fulness of his longing to pacify her,
Richard had pushed his chair back from the table, intending to go in
search of the vagrant jewel. But the chair was high, and its make not
of the most solid sort; and so he paused, instinctively calculating the
amount of support it could be trusted to render him in his descent. And
during that pause Helen had felt her heart stand still. She set her
little teeth now, recalling it. For the extent of his deformity was
fully apparent for once. And, apprehending that which he proposed to
do, she was smitten by immense curiosity to realise the ultimate of the
grotesque in respect of his appearance as he should move, walk, grope
in the dimness over there after the lost crystal. But there are some
indulgences which can be bought at too high a price, and along with the
temptation to gratify her curiosity came an intensification of
superstitious alarm. What if she had sinned, and trafficked with
diabolic agencies, in trying to read the future? Payment of an actively
disagreeable character might be exacted for that, and would not such
payment risk disastrous augmentation if she gratified her curiosity
thus further? Helen de Vallorbes became quite wonderfully prudent and
humane.

"No, no, don't bother about it, don't move, dear Richard," she cried.
"Let me find it please. I saw exactly the direction in which it went."

And to emphas