Here, the infinite possibilities of Nature were before him--the search for her glimmering and elusive shrine in an endless variety of thickets. He would slough the skin of conventions, and, plunging naked into the green glooms of enchantment, pursue the way from which only is hedged off by leafiness the menacing face of Death. More than this, work--the work that should be in touch with that of the great Mother, adapting her harmonies, imitating her lines--appealed to him with sudden force, so that he was to find a purpose in living that he had never guessed at hitherto. He was fascinated--absorbed in a dream of sun and woodlands and the mossy sparkle of innocent springs. As the spirit of the wine evaporated, however, that hideous token of a felon’s fate would slip into his thoughts with a recurring persistency. That this was so, first angered, then depressed him. He was not a particularly squeamish individual, and certainly his rough times were not favourable to sensitiveness in so common a respect. Still, he could not drive the sordid keepsake from his reflections. “Curse the jade!” he muttered. “Wasn’t the place lonely and dismal enough without that acute accent on its ghostliness!” He laboured out a sigh. “Well, at any rate,” he breathed, “it’s got rid of now.” As he spoke, his glance wandered to the long latticed window, a casement of which stood open: and there, upon the sill, a black blotch in the sunlight, lay the grinning horror itself. CHAPTER VIII. For some seconds the diner sat, too astounded for speech or action. That either of his dependents should have dared to thus defy him! At length he rose, and took a step or two towards the window. It was no trick of his fancy. There lay the abomination, its dry dead hair stirring in the draught, its stuft lid winking a dirty white, as if it cocked an eye at him in a hideous merriment. He strode to the door and thundered for his henchman. The latter came immediately, apprehensive already, and doubly so when he marked the other’s face. “You see that?” said his master, in a voice whose quiet was more appalling than any outburst of fury. Whimple’s very lips went ghastly. He tried to answer, and broke down at the first syllable. “I don’t accuse you of putting it there. Now, tell me--why didn’t you get rid of it as you undertook to do?” He made out the man to say that he had--that he had removed it to his own room, intending later to find some means of disposing of it. In the midst of his stammering explanations, Darda came softly into the hall. Her brother seized her arm with a shaking hand. “How could you?” he muttered. “How could you do a thing so stupid and wicked?--and you have ruined us.” She followed the direction of his wild eyes, and her own opened round in wonder. “I didn’t put it there,” she said. “Does he say I did? It is a lie.” He whispered “Hush!” in a fearful voice; but his master broke in at once.