window, smote her hair to a glory of pale colour, and St. George's
eyes wandered to the glass through which the sun fell. It was a thin
pane of irregular pieces set in a design of quaint, meaningless
characters, in the centre of which was the figure of a sphinx,
crucified upon an upright cross and surrounded by a border of coiled
asps with winged heads. The window glittered like a sheet of gems.

"What wonderful glass," involuntarily said St. George.

"Is it not?" Miss Holland said enthusiastically. "My father sent it.
He sent nearly all these things from abroad."

"I wonder where such glass is made," observed St. George; "it is
like lace and precious stones--hardly more painted than carved."

She bent upon him such a sudden, searching look that St. George felt
his eyes held by her own.

"Do you know anything of my father?" she demanded suddenly.

"Only that Mrs. Hastings has just told me that he is abroad--in the
South Atlantic," St. George wonderingly replied.

"Why, I am very foolish," said Miss Holland quickly, "we have not
heard from him in ten months now, and I am frightfully worried. Ah
yes, the glass is beautiful. It was made in one of the South
Atlantic islands, I believe--so were all these things," she added;
"the same figure of the crucified sphinx is on many of them."

"Do you know what it means?" he asked.