“I am frightened!” she murmured. I asked her what frightened her and she looked at me wildly and said, “And aren’t you afraid, too?” I kept silence, for I was afraid, myself. She said again. “You know something of what is going on--here or there or all around us! Ah, I am all alone! all alone! And I am so frightened.” She turned toward the door. “Where are you going?” I asked. “I am going to look for someone. I won’t stay here alone.” “For whom are you going to look?” “For Prince Galitch.” “Your ‘Feodor Feodorowitch!’” I cried. “What do you want with him? Am I not here?” Her nervousness, unfortunately, seemed to increase in proportion to my efforts to drive it away and I began to realize that a fearful doubt as to the personality of her uncle, Old Bob, had entered her mind. “Let us go out into the air!” she said, impatiently. “I can’t breathe in this place.” We left “la Louve” and entered the garden. It was approaching the hour of noontide and the court was a dream of perfumed beauty. As we had not donned our smoked spectacles, we were obliged to put our hands before our eyes in order to shield them from the glaring rays of the sun and the too glowing hues of the flowers. The giant geraniums struck on our eyeballs like bleeding wounds. When we had grown a little more used to the dazzling sight, we advanced over the shining sands, Edith clinging to my hand like a little child. Her hand burned hotter than the sun and seemed like a veritable flame. We looked down at our feet in order to prevent our eyes from falling on the blinding expanse of the waters and also, it may be, in order not to glance toward the buildings in which so many strange things had taken place--perhaps, were taking place even now. “I am afraid!” murmured Edith once more. And I, too, was afraid--overwhelmed after the mysteries of the night by the vast, desolate silence of the noon. The broad glare of daylight in which one knows that something strange and terrible is going on is more awful than the deepest and darkest night. Everything sleeps and yet everything wakes. Everything is dead and everything is living. Everything is wrapped in silence and still there are sounds everywhere. Listen to your own ear. It sounds as loud as a conch shell filled with the most mysterious sounds of the sea. Close your lids and look into your own eyes; you will find there a throng of crowding visions more mysterious than the phantoms of the night.