thinking of John the Baptist now. He was not feeling grim at all at this
moment; not fierce at all. So in his look there was to be seen nothing
of the whiplash, not one thing reminiscent of the abhorring fanatic on
the outskirts of the city. His eyes were filled, indeed, with a sudden
compassion; a compassion overflowing, unmistakable, and poignant. And
from that look the richly dressed girl with the seraph's face instantly
averted her gaze.
She heard a voice: the lame stranger speaking as if to himself.
"All that beauty without, and nothing at all within.... So lovely to the
eye, and empty where the heart should be.... God pity you, poor little
thing...."
And then Carlisle passed him quickly and went out of the summer-house
upon the lawn. The escape, this time, presented no difficulties. For the
last syllable had hardly died on the young man's lip before
self-consciousness appeared to return upon him, staggering him, it may
be, at the words of his mouth. He turned, abruptly, and fled in the
other direction.
So the audience in the moonlit summer-house concluded precipitately,
with the simultaneous departure of both parties from opposite exits.
Carlisle Heth went hurrying across the lawn. Within her, there was a
tumult; but her will was not feeble, and her sense of decorum and the
eternally fitting hardly less tenacious. Strongly she ruled her spirit
for the revivifying remeeting that awaited her just ahead....
But it was not Mr. Canning's voice which greeted her as she stepped up
on the hotel piazza. It was the low, angry challenge of her
soldier-mother, nipped in the act of charging upon the summer-house.
"_Carlisle_!... In heaven's name, what have you been doing?"
Facing mamma on the deserted piazza-end, Carlisle explained in a hurried
sentence that Mr. Dalhousie had sent a pleading friend to her, whom she
had felt obliged to see....
"Are you _mad_ to say such a thing? Was it for wild antics of this sort
that I threw everything to the winds to bring you down here?"
"Oh, mamma--please!" said Carlisle, her breath coming fast. "I've had
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