round and unglazed aperture, within which there is inky darkness. The
windows of the first and second stories are flanked by huge figures of
saints, standing forth in strangely contorted attitudes, black with the
dust of ages, black as all old Prague is black, with the smoke of the
brown Bohemian coal, with the dark and unctuous mists of many autumns,
with the cruel, petrifying frosts of ten score winters.

He who knew the cities of men as few have known them, knew also
this house. Many a time had he paused before it by day and by night,
wondering who lived within its massive, irregular walls, behind those
uncouth, barbarously sculptured saints who kept their interminable watch
high up by the lozenged windows. He would know now. Since she whom
he sought had entered, he would enter too; and in some corner of that
dwelling which had long possessed a mysterious attraction for his eyes,
he would find at last that being who held power over his heart, that
Beatrice whom he had learned to think of as dead, while still believing
that somewhere she must be yet alive, that dear lady whom, dead or
living, he loved beyond all others, with a great love, passing words.



CHAPTER II

The Wanderer stood still before the door. In the freezing air, his
quick-drawn breath made fantastic wreaths of mist, white and full of
odd shapes as he watched the tiny clouds curling quickly into each other
before the blackened oak. Then he laid his hand boldly upon the chain of
the bell. He expected to hear the harsh jingling of cracked metal, but
he was surprised by the silvery clearness and musical quality of the
ringing tones which reached his ear. He was pleased, and unconsciously