“When we were in the streets, I went along scarcely knowing what I was doing, I was so tired, and at last I sat down on a doorstep. It was Sir John Crokerly’s, and when his sister came home she took me in; and I have lived there ever since. There is nothing else to tell you. Now you know all, you need trouble yourself to be agreeable to me no longer. After all, I owed it to you to tell you. You gave me a greater gift than I thought it possible anyone on earth could ever give me. And you no doubt put it down to science, but I put it down to God. And—and about my coming here, when first I did come to you. I came from the sacred place of the temple. I had given up wishing to be cured of being dumb—at least, praying to be cured, because I thought God was not wishful to cure me. And I prayed to the Serpent just to help me to live the right way, because I knew that that was the only thing God really cared about And the Serpent seemed quite to disappear; in its place came the presence of God. Only one little ball of light and gold was left out of all that giant frame and jewelled head. And I don’t know quite how it was I came to you, any more than now I have gone to Miss Crokerly.”
With these words said, she got up and stood facing him, for he had not sat down during this monologue but stood looking at her, a thing which, after first beginning, she seemed quite unconscious of.
Her words had been simple, her sentences short and abrupt, and at times somewhat disconnected, but Rosalie’s voice was so sweet that it seemed to run like a silver bell in and out the mazes of this experience.
“I have detained you long enough. Perhaps you’ll forgive the school-girl style. Though I feel so old, I can find no other.”
“Come with me to the stable,” said he, “and show me the door. I don’t believe there is one.”
“I had much rather you came with me. It is the only way in which I can credit your story.”
So together they went through the silent house and silent grounds and silent shrubbery. The red light shone full down the middle pathway to the stable door. But Brightcoat shed a softer brilliancy round about, if not so clearly and direct. But then there was no need for it as guide to-day.
The stables shone out with a certain curious light of their own—a dusky, shadowy brightness.