“My enemy?” I repeated, wonderingly.

“Yes—­again Yourself!  The only power any man or woman has ever had, or ever will have, to contend with!”

He dropped my hands, and I suppose I must have expressed some mute appeal in my upward glance at him, for the faintest shadow of a smile came on his lips.

“God be with you!” he said, softly, and then with a gentle gesture signed to me to leave him.  I at once obeyed, and followed the guide Honorius, who led me back to my own room, where, without speaking a word, he closed and locked the door upon me as before.  To my surprise, I found my luggage which I had left at the inn placed ready for me—­and on a small dresser set in a niche of the wall which I had not noticed before, there was a plate of fruit and dry bread, with a glass of cold water.  On going to look at this little refection, which was simply yet daintily set out, I saw that the dresser was really a small lift, evidently connected with the domestic offices of the house, and I concluded that this would be the means by which all my meals would be served.  I did not waste much time in thinking about it, however,—­I was only too glad to be allowed to remain in the House of Aselzion on any terras, and the fact that I was imprisoned under lock and key did not now trouble me.  I unpacked my few things, among which were three or four favourite books,—­then I sat down to my frugal repast, for which hunger provided a keen appetite.  When I had finished, I took a chair to the open window and sat there, looking out on the sea.  I saw my friendly little rose leaning its crimson head against the wall just below me with quite a confidential air, and it gave me a sense of companionship, otherwise the solitude was profound.  The sky was darkening into night, though one or two glowing bars of deep crimson still lingered as memories of the departed sun—­and a pearly radiance to the eastward showed a suggestion of the coming moon.  I felt the sense of deep environing silence closing me in like a wall--and looking back over my shoulder from the window to the interior of my room it seemed full of drifting shadows, dark and impalpable.  I remembered I had no candle or any other sort of light—­and this gave me a passing uneasiness, but only for a moment.  I could go to bed, I thought, when I was tired of watching the sea.  At any rate, I would wait for the moonrise,—­the scene I looked upon was divinely peaceful and beautiful,—­one that a painter or poet would have revelled in—­and I was content.  I was not conscious of any fear,—­ but I did feel myself being impressed as it were and gradually overcome by the deepening stillness and great loneliness of my surroundings.  ‘The rule for her is solitude and silence.’  So had said Aselzion.  And evidently the rule was being enforced.

XIV

CROSS AND STAR