Vasho essayed a feeble grin,--but his black skin looked a shade less black, as he heard his master’s words and saw his resolute action. Gone was the faint hope the poor blackamoor had entertained of being of some use or rescue to the victim prisoned in the laboratory,--she was evidently doomed to abide her fate. And Dimitrius walked with an unfaltering step through the long corridor from the laboratory into the hall of his house, and then sent Vasho about his usual household business, while he himself went into the garden and looked at the still beauty of the evening. Everywhere there was fragrance and peace--innumerable stars clustered in the sky, and the faint outline of the snowy Alps was dimly perceptible. From the lawn, he could see the subdued glitter of the glass dome of the laboratory; at that moment it had the effect of a crystal sphere with the palest of radiance filtering through. “And to-morrow is the longest day!” he said with a kind of rapt exultation. “Pray Heaven the sun may shine with all its strongest force and utmost splendour from its rising to its setting! So shall we imprison the eternal fire!” CHAPTER XX The next morning dawned cloudlessly, and a burning sun blazed intense summer heat through all the hours of the longest and loveliest day. Such persistent warmth brought its own languor and oppression, and though all the doors and windows of the Château Fragonard were left open, Madame Dimitrius found herself quite overwhelmed by the almost airless stillness, notwithstanding a certain under-wave of freshness which always flowed from the mountains like a breathing of the snow. “How is Diana?” she asked of her son, as, clad in a suit of cool white linen, he sauntered in from the garden to luncheon. “I believe she is very well,” he answered, composedly. “She has not complained.” “I hope she has nothing to complain of,” said the old lady, nervously. “You promised me, Féodor, that you would not let her suffer.” “I promised you that if she was unhappy or in pain, I would do my best to spare her as much as possible,” he replied. “But, up to the present, she is neither unhappy nor in pain.” “You are sure?” “Sure!” Vasho, who was in attendance, stared at him in something of questioning terror, and his mother watched him with a mute fondness of appeal in her eyes which, however, he did not or would not see. She could not but feel a certain pride in him as she looked at his fine, intellectual face, rendered just now finer and more attractive by the tension of his inward thought. Presently he met her searching, loving gaze with a smile.