afraid. They were the sins, the filthy, immortal sins of those
courtly men and women.

How demure she was, the lady that sat near me on an old-world
chair--how demure she was, and how fair, to have beside her with its
jowl upon her lap a sin with such cavernous red eyes, a clear case
of murder. And you, yonder lady with the golden hair, surely not
you--and yet that fearful beast with the yellow eyes slinks from
you to yonder courtier there, and whenever one drives it away it
slinks back to the other. Over there a lady tries to smile as she
strokes the loathsome furry head of another's sin, but one of her
own is jealous and intrudes itself under her hand. Here sits an old
nobleman with his grandson on his knee, and one of the great black
sins of the grandfather is licking the child's face and has made the
child its own. Sometimes a ghost would move and seek another chair,
but always his pack of sins would move behind him. Poor ghosts,
poor ghosts! how many flights they must have attempted for two
hundred years from their hated sins, how many excuses they must have
given for their presence, and the sins were with them still--and
still unexplained. Suddenly one of them seemed to scent my living
blood, and bayed horribly, and all the others left their ghosts at
once and dashed up to the sin that had given tongue. The brute had
picked up my scent near the door by which I had entered, and they
moved slowly nearer to me sniffing along the floor, and uttering
every now and then their fearful cry. I saw that the whole thing
had gone too far. But now they had seen me, now they were all about
me, they sprang up trying to reach my throat; and whenever their
claws touched me, horrible thoughts came into my mind and
unutterable desires dominated my heart. I planned bestial things as
these creatures leaped around me, and planned them with a masterly