“I have permission to pass,” said she at the door, and then she stood outside. It seemed to her when she reached the parapet that she had been out of the world for years. And oh! to be back in the world again! To see and hear the sights and sounds, so commonplace and ordinary, yet to her stilled ear so sweet again. Never had that terrible silent mansion struck her as so terrible till now she stood amongst the noise of work and life once more. One hour of freedom. One hour with the light, jogging world, and then to pass once more beneath the shadow—a silent spirit in a silent world. The ’bus rattled on, taking its own slow time towards that quarter of the city where she had lived. She found the upper storey empty, and none had missed her. Yesterday the doctor had told her his intention of coming for her at four o’clock to-day. It was not yet quite twelve. Each of the little rooms was now quite bare, except the tiny attic called her bedroom. In it were gathered the few trivial things she prized as belonging to days that were less dark than these. There was a necklace of coral, a collar of lace, a pair of gloves, kid, backed with astrachan, the last present her uncle ever gave her; a tiny brooch of gold, left by her aunt, and always worn by her, and but little else. One other thing she found, a book that in that planet compares nearly to our Bible. Sadly and lovingly she placed them all together, and kissed them many times, her eyes blinded with tears; and then a voice whispered: “Why go back? Go to this doctor. Tell him everything, for he is kind. None would blame you for not returning to that prison mansion, even though under a promise. It was an unfair advantage.” But Rosalie shook her head. “I must go back, because I promised. I asked everything in return for nothing. And God, in His own good time, will make the dark path plain.” The struggle gradually died, and Right conquered. At last she was ready to go. Glancing round for the last time, she saw upon the mantelpiece a key, a solitary one upon an iron ring. “It belonged to uncle’s safe, the one that had so little in it,” she thought. She took it up. Its dull appearance suggested so much dull tragedy to her. “I’ll take it with me,” she thought, and slipped it in the pocket of her dress. Then she passed down the broad stone steps out once more into the street. Her brief holiday was over. The short hour was almost passed. She clenched her hands together, and drove back the blinding tears that struggled in her eyes. Gradually she drew nearer to the Avenue—how eagerly she had rushed there on the night before! The great black marble mansion came in view, its dusky grandeur having a certain sinister lowering to her understanding eye no different from a prison. “I wonder when I’ll walk along this street again?” she thought, and ascended the marble steps, hiding all trace of past emotion. CHAPTER VIII A BOOK OF INSPIRATION