“It matters little for poor me,” answered Juliet with a sigh.  “You know I do not believe in Him.”

“But I believe in Him,” answered Polwarth, “and Ruth believes in Him, and so does Miss Drake; and if He be with us, he can not be far from you.”

With that he stepped back to Ruth’s side, and said no more.

Dorothy opened the door quickly, the moment their feet were on the steps; they entered quickly, and she closed it behind them at once, fearful of some eye in the night.  How different was the house from that which Juliet had left!  The hall was lighted with a soft lamp, showing dull, warm colors on walls and floor.  The dining-room door stood open; a wood-fire was roaring on the hearth, and candles were burning on a snowy table spread for a meal.  Dorothy had a chamber-candle in her hand.  She showed the Polwarths into the dining-room, then turning to Juliet, said,

“I will take you to your room, dear.”

“I have prepared your old quarters for you,” she said, as they went up the stair.

With the words there rushed upon Juliet such a memory of mingled dreariness and terror, that she could not reply.

“You know it will be safest,” added Dorothy, and as she spoke, set the candle on a table at the top of the stair.  They went along the passage, and she opened the door of the closet.  All was dark.

She opened the door in the closet, and Juliet started back with amazement.  It was the loveliest room! and—­like a marvel in a fairy-tale—­the great round moon was shining gloriously, first through the upper branches of a large yew, and then through an oriel window, filled with lozenges of soft greenish glass, through which fell a lovely picture on the floor in light and shadow and something that was neither or both.  Juliet turned in delight, threw her arms round Dorothy, and kissed her.

“I thought I was going into a dungeon,” she said, “and it is a room for a princess!”

“I sometimes almost believe, Juliet,” returned Dorothy, “that God will give us a great surprise one day.”

Juliet was tired, and did not want to hear about God.  If Dorothy had done all this, she thought, for the sake of reading her a good lesson, it spoiled it all.  She did not understand the love that gives beyond the gift, that mantles over the cup and spills the wine into the spaces of eternal hope.  The room was so delicious that she begged to be excused from going down to supper.  Dorothy suggested it would not be gracious to her friends.  Much as she respected, and indeed loved them, Juliet resented the word friends, but yielded.

The little two would themselves rather have gone home—­it was so late—­but staid, fearing to disappoint Dorothy.  If they did run a risk by doing so, it was for a good reason—­therefore of no great consequence.

“How your good father will delight to watch you here sometimes, Miss Drake,” said Polwarth, “if those who are gone are permitted to see, walking themselves unseen.”