r Ruric. Dom Manuel talked
with the clerk about this and that. Presently Dom Manuel said: "But one
stifles here. Open that window."

The clerk obeyed. Manuel at the writing-table watched him intently. But
in opening the window the clerk had of necessity stood with his back
toward Count Manuel, and when Ruric turned, the dark young face of Ruric
was impassive.

Dom Manuel, playing with the jeweled chain of office about his neck,
considered Ruric's face. Then Manuel said: "That is all. You may go."

But Count Manuel's face was troubled, and for the rest of this day he
kept an eye on Ruric the young clerk. In the afternoon it was noticeable
that this Ruric went often, on one pretext and another, into the Room of
Ageus when nobody else was there. The next afternoon, in broad daylight,
Manuel detected Ruric carrying into the Room of Ageus, of all things, a
lantern. The Count waited a while, then went into the room through its
one door. The room was empty. Count Manuel sat down and drummed with his
fingers upon the top of his writing-table.

After a while the third window was opened. Ruric the clerk climbed over
the sill. He blew out his lantern.

"You are braver than I," Count Manuel said, "it may be. It is certain
you are younger. Once, Ruric, I would not have lured any dark and
prim-voiced young fellow into attempting this adventure, but would have
essayed it myself post-haste. Well, but I have other duties now, and
appearances to keep up: and people would talk if they saw a
well-thought-of nobleman well settled in life climbing out of his own
windows, and there is simply no telling what my wife would think of it"

The clerk had turned, startled, dropping his lantern with a small crash.
His hands went jerkily to his smooth chin, clutching it. His face was
white as a leper's face, and his eyes now were wild and glittering, and
his head was drawn low between his black-clad shoulders, so that he
seemed a hunchback as he confronted his master. Another queer thing
Manuel could notice, and it was that a great lock had been sheared away
from the left side of Ruric's black hair.

"What have you learned," says Manuel, "out yonder?"

"I cannot tell you," replied Ruric, laughing sillily, "but in place of
it, I will tell you a tale. Yes, yes, Count Manuel, I will tell you a
merry story of how a great while ago our common grandmother Eve was
washing her children one day near Eden when God called to her. She hid
away the childr