What a horrible palace! he thought.  Restless, he wandered through the maze, asking himself what it all meant—­whether he was in prison; chafing, thirsting for the fresh air.  He repeated Dea!  Dea! as if that word was the thread of the labyrinth, and must be held unbroken, to guide him out of it.  Now and then he shouted, “Ho!  Any one there?” No one answered.  The rooms never came to an end.  All was deserted, silent, splendid, sinister.  It realized the fables of enchanted castles.  Hidden pipes of hot air maintained a summer temperature in the building.  It was as if some magician had caught up the month of June and imprisoned it in a labyrinth.  There were pleasant odours now and then, and he crossed currents of perfume, as though passing by invisible flowers.  It was warm.  Carpets everywhere.  One might have walked about there, unclothed.

Gwynplaine looked out of the windows.  The view from each one was different.  From one he beheld gardens, sparkling with the freshness of a spring morning; from another a plot decked with statues; from a third, a patio in the Spanish style, a little square, flagged, mouldy, and cold.  At times he saw a river—­it was the Thames; sometimes a great tower—­it was Windsor.

It was still so early that there were no signs of life without.

He stood still and listened.

“Oh!  I will get out of this place,” said he.  “I will return to Dea!  They shall not keep me here by force.  Woe to him who bars my exit!  What is that great tower yonder?  If there was a giant, a hell-hound, a minotaur, to keep the gate of this enchanted palace, I would annihilate him.  If an army, I would exterminate it.  Dea!  Dea!”

Suddenly he heard a gentle noise, very faint.  It was like dropping water.  He was in a dark narrow passage, closed, some few paces further on, by a curtain.  He advanced to the curtain, pushed it aside, entered.  He leaped before he looked.

CHAPTER III.

EVE.

An octagon room, with a vaulted ceiling, without windows but lighted by a skylight; walls, ceiling, and floors faced with peach-coloured marble; a black marble canopy, like a pall, with twisted columns in the solid but pleasing Elizabethan style, overshadowing a vase-like bath of the same black marble—­this was what he saw before him.  In the centre of the bath arose a slender jet of tepid and perfumed water, which, softly and slowly, was filling the tank.  The bath was black to augment fairness into brilliancy.

It was the water which he had heard.  A waste-pipe, placed at a certain height in the bath, prevented it from overflowing.  Vapour was rising from the water, but not sufficient to cause it to hang in drops on the marble.  The slender jet of water was like a supple wand of steel, bending at the slightest current of air.  There was no furniture, except a chair-bed with pillows, long enough for a woman to lie on at full length, and yet have room for a dog at her feet.  The French, indeed, borrow their word canape from can-al-pie.  This sofa was of Spanish manufacture.  In it silver took the place of woodwork.  The cushions and coverings were of rich white silk.