the threshold of that room, she knew where she was; left alone, she
looked around her. There he once had stood; there he had parted from
Madeline Desperiers; from that last interview he had gone forth to
long captivity! She stood by the lofty, narrow windows, to see what
he had seen when standing before them,--that town the ancient
Desperiers laid out for his tenants in the ancient days,--the church,
the pond, the park,--the garden, so vast, and so astonishing for
beauty, the gazer scarce believed her eyes. And she remembered beds
of flowers under a prison-wall, and who that day looked on them.

He had said that the mistress of this grand domain was a soldier's
daughter. He had said that she was a grand lady. A soldier's
daughter had come here to hold an interview with her! A drummer's
daughter, a girl from out the barracks and the prison of Foray, was
here!--A strange light, so strange that it seemed not natural, broke
from these reflections of Elizabeth, and illuminated the library. It
fell on the great bookcases that were filled from floor to ceiling
with books which cost a fortune, on the great easy-chairs black with
age, on picture and on bust, on the old writing-stand, the more
modern centre-table piled with newspapers and pamphlets, on the
curious clock that told the hours with a "silverey voice." It fell,
too, on a portrait that did not often greet the gaze even of such as
found access into that room,--a portrait of him for whose sake she
was here, having compassed land and sea.

When she first saw the picture, she was sitting in one of the chairs
beside the table,--her eyes had taken cognizance of everything but
that,--and of that became aware so strangely that she could not at
first persuade herself of the nature of the mystery that took such
hold of her and possessed her so wholly. A proud and glorious vision,