many-toned violence of it seemed to bear strange and
intimate relation--as that of a great orchestra to a single dominant
human voice--to the subtle, evil influence which she felt to be at
large within the sleeping house. And so, without pausing to consider
the wisdom of her action, pushed by the conviction that something of
profound import was taking place, and that some one, or something, must
be saved by her from threatening danger, Katherine threw open the
Gun-Room door.

The shout of the storm seemed far away. This place was quick with
stillness too, with the hush of waiting for the accomplishment of some
mysterious event or visitation, even as the dark chapel up-stairs had
been. Only here moving effect of soft, brilliant light, of caressing
warmth, of vague, insidious fragrance met her. Katherine Calmady had
only known passion in its purest and most legitimate form. It had been
for her, innocent of all grossness, or suggestion of degradation, fair
and lovely and natural, revelation of highest and most enchanting
secrets. But having once known it in its fulness, she could not fail to
recognise its presence, even though it wore a diabolic, rather than
angelic face. That passion met her now, exultant, effulgent, along with
that light and heat and fragrance, she did not for an instant doubt.
And the splendour of its near neighbourhood turned her faint with dread
and with poignant memories. She paused upon the threshold, steadying
herself with one hand against the cold, stone jamb of the arched
doorway, while in the other she held the massive candlestick and its
flickering, draught-driven lights.

A mist was before her eyes, a singing in her ears, so that she had much
ado to see clearly and reckon justly with that which she did see. Helen
de Vallorbes, clothed in a flowing, yet clinging, silken garment of
turquoise, shot with blue purple and shimmering glaucous green--a
garment in colour such as that with which the waves of Adriatic might
have clothed the rosy limbs of new-born Aphrodite, as she rose from the
cool, translucent sea-deeps--knelt upon the tiger-skin before the
dancing fire. Her hands grasped the two arms of Richard's chair. She
leaned down right across it, the lines and curves of her beautiful body
discernible under her delicate draperies. The long, open sleeves of her
dress fell away from her outstretched arms, showing them in their
completeness from wrist to shoulder. Her head was thrown back, so that