"Yes, he certainly is respectable," she agreed, with a smile. "But where were you when I came in? You didn't come through this door."
He laughed again in a fashion half-mocking, half-secretive. "That is my affair, ma belle reine. Some day I may show you--several things; but that day has not dawned yet."
He threw open the door, and they found the great hall below them ablaze with electric light. "I suppose I may accompany you downstairs," he observed.
"What a wonderful place it is!" Maud said.
Her eyes went almost involuntarily to the statue that had arrested her attention on entering. It shone from its niche with a white splendour that seemed to give forth light.
"My Captured Angel has the place of honour by night and by day," said Saltash. "I have been wanting you to see her, or perhaps it would be more correct to say, I have been wanting to see you together. Have you ever met your other self before?"
"My other self?" She looked at him interrogatively.
He made her a quizzical bow. "Have you never seen that face before?"
She descended the stairs, and approached the statue. They stood together before it. She had desired to see it in solitude before, but with Saltash by her side that desire had left her. They viewed it from the same standpoint, in that subtle communion of spirit that had always characterized their intercourse.
And she saw--as he saw--her own features carved in the marble, piteous, tragic, alive.