The room was in darkness, but for the moonlight which poured in through the windows of one side, and made queer work with the pictures on which it fell. At the end the moonlight shone through the door, hardly ever used, which led from the Gallery into the Garden of the College beyond.
"What is that?" Mildred caught Christine by the hand.
"It is the door leading into the College Gardens. How came it open?"
"I suppose there is a key on the old rusty bunch hanging up in the Museum, but I do not know--I have never tried the keys. Who could have opened it?"
Christine walked down the Gallery hastily, Mildred following. The door was standing wide open.
"Who has done this?" asked Christine, again. "I cannot tell who could have opened the door, or why. It has never been opened before."
Mildred shuddered. "It is thrown open for some mischief," she said; "we shall find out soon enough by whom."
Then they looked out through the door into the Garden of the College. The door faced a semicircular lawn run wild with rank grass never shorn; behind the lawn were trees; and the moonlight lay on all.
Suddenly the girls caught hands and shrank back into the door-way, for a tall form emerged from the trees and appeared upon the lawn, where he walked with hanging head and hands clasped behind his back.
"It is the Arch Physician!" Christine whispered.
"It is Harry Linister," Mildred murmured.
Then they retreated within and shut the door noiselessly; but they could not lock or fasten it.
"I can see that part of the Garden from a window in the Library," said Christine. "He walks there every morning and every evening. He is always alone. He always hangs his head, and he always looks fit to cry for trouble. What is the good of being Arch Physician, if you cannot have things done as you want?"
"My dear," said Mildred, "I am afraid you do not quite understand. In the old days--I mean not quite the dear old days, but in the time when people still discussed things and we had not been robbed of memory and of understanding--it was very well known that the Arch Physician was out-voted in the College by Grout and his Party."
"My dear, Grout was never a Doctor. He only calls himself Doctor. I remember when Grout was an ignorant man taken into Professor Linister's Laboratory to wash up the pots and bottles. He was thin, just as he is now--a short, dark, and sour-faced man, with bright eyes. Oh, a clever man, I dare say, but ignorant, and full of hatred for the class of culture and refinement. It was Grout who led the Party which took away land and wealth from individuals and transferred all to the State. It was Grout who ordered the Massacre of the Old. It was Grout who invented the horrible cruelty of the Common Dress. It was Grout who made the College what it is--not what it was meant to be. It was originally the Guardian of Life and Health. It has become the Tyrant of the People. It has destroyed everything--everything that makes life possible--and it tells the People to be happy because they live. It is Grout--Grout!--who has done this. Not the Arch Physician. Not Harry Linister."