"Then all that Abraham told me is true!" muttered Joseph, closing his hand over the trinket. "But I shall follow you, Benjamin. When you think you are alone you shall find me by turning your head. Every day by sunrise and every day by the dark I beg Haneemar to put his curse on you. I have done you no wrong, and you have had me shamed." "And now you're going to have me bewitched, eh?" asked Connor. "You shall see." The gambler drew back another pace and through the shadows he saw the beginning of a smile of animal-cunning on the face of Joseph. "The devil take you and Haneemar together," he growled. "Remember this, Joseph. I've had you whipped once. The next time I'll have you flayed alive." Instead of answering, Joseph merely grinned more openly, and the gambler, to forget the ape-face, wheeled and hurried out from the trees. The touch of nightmare dread did not leave him until he rejoined Ruth on the higher terrace. They found the patio glowing with light, the table near the fountain, and three chairs around it. David came out of the shadow of the arcade to meet them, and he was as uneasy as a boy who had a surprise for grown-ups. He had not even time for a greeting. "You have not seen your room?" he said to Ruth. "I have made it ready for you. Come!" He led the way half a pace in front, glancing back at them as though to reprove their slowness, until he reached a door at which he turned and faced her, laughing with excitement. She could hardly believe that this man with his childish gayety was the same whose fury had terrified the servants that same afternoon. "Close your eyes--close them fast. You will not look until I say?" She obeyed, setting her teeth to keep from smiling. "Now come forward--step high for the doorway. So! You are in. Now wait--now open your eyes and look!" She obeyed again and saw first David standing back with an anxious smile and the gesture of one who reveals, but is not quite sure of its effect. Then she heard a soft, startled exclamation from Connor behind her. Last of all she saw the room. It was as if the walls had been broken down and a garden let inside--it gave an effect of open air, sunlight and wind. Purple flowers like warm shadows banked the farther corners, and out of them rose a great vine draping the window. It had been torn bodily from the earth, and now the roots were packed with damp moss, yellow-green. It bore in clusters and single flowers and abundant bloom, each blossom as large as the mallow, and a dark gold so rich that Ruth well-nigh listened for the murmur of bees working this mine of pollen. From above, the great flowers hung down against the dull red of the sunset sky; and from below the distant treetops on the terrace pointed up with glimmers of the lake between. There was only the reflected light of the evening, now, but the cuplike blossoms were filled to the brim with a glow of their own. She looked away.