ened by the cry which had been rent from
his master, fell to barking. Darvid turned from the desk, and his
glance met the black wall beyond the door.

"Was it an error?" he repeated.

The darkness was silent, and a face without eyes seemed to gaze
at him persistently, with attention. He moved forward a few steps
quickly, and pressed the bell-knob. To the incoming servant he
indicated the door, and said:

"Light up the drawing-rooms!"

After a few moments the series of drawing-rooms emerged from the
darkness, and stood in the light of blazing lamps and candles.
Globe-lamps, burning at the walls, cast a hazy half-light, in
which glittered, here and there, golden gleams, and appeared the
features of painted faces and landscapes.

From shady corners emerged, partially, the forms of slender and
swelling vases; portions of white garlands on the walls; the
delicate mists of dim colors on Gobelin tapestry; the bright
scarlet and blue of silk drapery. Farther on, in the small
drawing-room, burned, in two chandeliers, a bundle of tapers,
beneath which hung a crown of crystals, glittering like icicles,
or immense congealed tears. Farther on still, in the dining-room,
with its dark walls, gleamed a bright spot in the grand lamp of
pendant bronze above the table. This point seemed very distant
from Darvid's study; but on the whole expanse which divided him
from it there was neither voice nor sound--there was nothing
living. Notwithstanding the multitude of objects scattered, or
collected, this was a desert on which silence had imposed itself.

From the threshold of the study to that door, beyond which the
largest of the lamps was suspended as a shining object in its
bronze above the table, Darvid moved, stepping with inclined
face; at his lips the fire of a lighted cigarette; now, as it
were, extinguished; and, now, shining up again. Behind him, right
there near his feet, with the end of its snout almost touching
the floor, rolled along little Puffie, like a bundle of raw silk.

After a while, the step of the advancing man grew more hurried
and uneven; increasing disquiet was expressed in him; now the
light scattering along the unoccupied and silent space the extent
of that space, and he himself wandering along through it. What
did all this signify? Here and there, in the gildings and
polished surfaces, quivered flashes like playful gnomes; at other
points, on bluish backgrounds, pale faces looked from tapestry
thrown ove