upward in simple wonder. The dream house of two lonely old men who had
no place where they could spend their money!

According to its own records, the château, fashioned quite closely after
a famous structure in France, was designed and built by La Marche, the
ill-fated French architect who was lost at sea in the wreck of the
_Vendome_. Three years and more than seven hundred thousand pounds
sterling, or to make it seem more prodigious, nearly eighteen million
francs, were consumed in its building. An army of skilled artisans had
come out from France and Austria to make this quixotic dream a reality
before the two old men should go into their dreamless sleep; to say
nothing of the slaving, faithful islanders who laboured for love in the
great undertaking. Specially chartered ships had carried material and
men to the island--and had carried the men away again, for not one of
them remained behind after the completion of the job.

There was not a contrivance or a convenience known to modern
architecture that was not included in the construction of this
latter-day shadow of antiquity.

It was, to step on ahead of the story as politely as possible, fully a
week before Lord and Lady Deppingham realised all that their new home
meant in the way of scientific improvement and, one might say, research.
It was so spacious, so comprehensive of domain, so elaborate, that one
must have been weeks in becoming acquainted with its fastnesses, if that
word may be employed. To what uses Taswell Skaggs and John Wyckholme
could have put this vast, though splendid waste, the imagination cannot
grasp. Apartments fit for a king abounded; suites which took one back to
the luxuries of Marie Antoinette were common; banquet halls, ball rooms,
reception halls, a chapel, and even a crypt were to be found if one