and that. I seem to see the wise men of the law, the judges, the priests,
and lictors rising and bowing in acknowledgment. I heard the hush of a
thousand people all craning their necks to look round the heads of their
neighbors, and the hum of whispered comment reach farther and farther
back, till it lapped against the walls and ebbed out into the street from
the great open door of the Hall of Judgment. It was a surprising sight,
this great trial--the gloomy hall, black with age and deeds of darkness,
lit by the rays of sunlight falling through windows of red glass, the
faces of men flecked as with blood where the evening sunlight streamed
luridly upon them.

In the midst there was a clear four-square space. A lictor, with a bundle
of rods, stood at each corner. I looked, and there, alone in the centre,
attired in white, the cynosure of eyes, I beheld--Helene.

CHAPTER XLI

THE GARRET OF THE RED TOWER

I felt my temples, my ears, my neck tingling with cold. I seemed to have
fallen into a sea of ice. I think I would have fallen and fainted but
that at that moment my master sat down beside the Bishop, and I was left
free to retire into a darksome corner, where I staggered against a beam,
slimy with black sweat, and hung over it with my hand clasping my brow,
trying to think what had happened.

I do not know how long I remained in this position, nor yet when I came
to myself. All was a dream to me, a nightmare of horrid whirlings and
infinite oppressions. The faces of the folk that watched, the garmentry
of the Bishop and his priests, the red robes of the young Duke and his
assessors, spun round me in a hideous phantasmagoria.

At last I was conscious that a trumpet had blown. Whereupon all rose up.
The secretaries stacked their papers unconcernedly with the feathers of
their pens in their mouths. And then in the solemn silence which ensued
the Duke and his judges filed out of the door, while the power of the
Church, represented by Bishop Peter and his priests, went forth by
another. Before I could realize the situation, Helene had vanished, as it
seemed, down a trap-door in the floor.

My master accompanied Bishop Peter. As for me, I hardly knew what I did.
I did not even stand up, till our conductor, he who had gone forward to
announce us at the first, ran across to me, and, plucking me by the arm
from the beam on which I leaned, whispered, hurriedly: "Art dead or
drunk, man, that thou riskest thine ears