of the window, which he had opened during the conversation.  There was a little trail of ants climbing up and down the wall at the side, and he watched them.  One of the small creatures, heavily laden with a seed of some sort, and toiling painfully under the burden, had been separated from the rest, and clambered over the edge of the window-sill.  On reaching the level surface it paused, as though very weary, and looked about, moving its tiny horns.  Benoni looked at it a moment, and then with one finger he suddenly whisked the poor little thing into space.  It hurt me to see it, and I knew he must be cruel, for he laughed aloud.  Somehow it would have seemed less cruel to have brushed away the whole trail of insects, rather than to pitch upon this one small tired workman, overladen and forgotten by the rest.

“Why did you do that?” I asked involuntarily.

“Why?  Why do I do anything?  Because I please, the best of all reasons.”

“Of course; it was foolish of me to ask you.  That is probably the cause of your presence here.  You would like to hurl my boy Nino from the height he has reached in his love, and to satisfy your cruel instincts you have come here to attack the heart of an innocent girl.”  I watched him narrowly, and I have often wondered how I had the courage to insult him.  It was a bold shot at the truth, and his look satisfied me that I was not very wide of the mark.  To accuse a gray-haired old man of attempting to win the affections of a young girl would seem absurd enough.  But if you had ever seen Benoni, you would understand that he was anything but old, save for his snowy locks.  Many a boy might envy the strange activity of his thin limbs, the bloom and freshness of his eager face, and the fire of his eyes.  He was impulsive, too; for instead of laughing at the absurdity of the thing, or at what should have been its absurdity, as a more accomplished villain would have done, he was palpably angry.  He looked quickly at me and moved savagely, so that I drew back, and it was not till some moments later that it occurred to him that he ought to seem amused.

“How ridiculous!” he cried at last, mastering his anger.  “You are joking.”

“Oh, of course I am joking,” I answered, leaving the window.  “And now I must wish you good-morning, with many apologies for my intrusion.”  He must have been glad to be rid of me, but he politely insisted on showing me to the gate.  Perhaps he wanted to be sure that I should not ask questions of the servants.  As we passed through an outer hall we came suddenly upon Hedwig entering from the opposite direction, dressed in black, and looking like a beautiful shadow of pain.  As I have told you, she did not know me.  Benoni bowed to the ground as she went by, making some flattering speech about her appearance.  She had started slightly on first seeing us, and then she went on without speaking; but there was on her face a look of such sovereign scorn and loathing as I never saw on the features of any living being.  And more than scorn, for there was fear and hatred with it:  so that if a glance could tell a whole history, there would have been no detail of her feeling for Benoni left to guess.