y streets
seemed to mark its center, and turned finally into another diagonal
street that dropped swiftly down towards the lake front. At the edge of
a promontory this street abruptly terminated in a broad flight of steps
leading down to a little beach on the lake shore perhaps a hundred feet
below.

The Chemist turned sharp to the right at the head of these steps, and,
passing through the opened gateway of an arch in a low gray wall, led
his friends into a garden in which were growing a profusion of flowers.
These flowers, they noticed, were most of them blue or gray, or of a
pale silvery whiteness, lending to the scene a peculiarly wan, wistful
appearance, yet one of extraordinary, quite unearthly beauty.

Through the garden a little gray-pebbled path wound back to where a
house stood, nearly hidden in a grove of trees, upon a bluff directly
overlooking the lake.

"My home, gentlemen," said the Chemist, with a wave of his hand.

As they approached the house they heard, coming from within, the mellow
voice of a woman singing--an odd little minor theme, with a quaint,
lilting rhythm, and words they could not distinguish. Accompanying the
voice were the delicate tones of some stringed instrument suggesting a
harp.

"We are expected," remarked the Chemist with a smile. "Lylda is still
up, waiting for us." The Very Young Man's heart gave a leap at the
mention of the name.

From the outside, the Chemist's house resembled many of the larger ones
they had seen as they came through the city. It was considerably more
pretentious than any they had yet noticed, diamond-shaped--that is to
say, a flattened oblong--two stories in height and built of large blocks
of the gray polished stone.

Unlike the other houses, its sides were not bare, but were partly
covered by a luxuriant growth of vines and trellised flowers. There were
no balconies under its windows, except on the lake side. There, at the
height of the second story, a covered balcony broad enough almost to be
called a veranda, stretched the full width of the house.

A broad door of brass, fronting the garden, stood partly open, and the
Chemist pushed it wide and ushered in his friends. They found themselves
now in a triangular hallway, or lobby, with an open arch in both its
other sides giving passage into rooms beyond. Through one of these
archways the Chemist led them, into what evidently was the main
living-room of the dwelling.

It was a high-ceilinged room n