careful; and so he--

She ceases. According to the terms of the treaty, the venerable lady's
time has passed. An extinguisher descends on her, giving her the
likeness of one under condemnation of 'the Most Holy Inqusition, in the
ranks of an 'auto da fe'; and singularly resembling that victim at the
first sharp bite of the flames she will, be when she hears the version of
her story.




CHAPTER IV

MORNING AND FAREWELL TO AN OLD HOME

Brother and sister were about to leave the mountainland for England.
They had not gone to bed overnight, and from the windows of their
deserted home, a little before dawn, they saw the dwindled moon, a late
riser, break through droves of hunted cloud, directly topping their
ancient guardian height, the triple peak and giant of the range,
friendlier in his name than in aspect for the two young people clinging
to the scene they were to quit. His name recalled old-days: the
apparition of his head among the heavens drummed on their sense of
banishment.

To the girl, this was a division of her life, and the dawn held the
sword. She felt herself midswing across a gulf that was the grave of one
half, without a light of promise for the other. Her passionate excess of
attachment to her buried home robbed the future of any colours it might