“After a fashion.”
“But did he make gold?” persisted Sylvia.
“No, not absolutely make it. But he was, in his worship of money, an alchemist for all that.”
“What became of him?”
“I don't know,” said Dawes, with so much constraint in his tone that the child instinctively turned the subject.
“Then, alchemy is a very old art?”
“Oh, yes.”
“Did the Ancient Britons know it?”
“No, not as old as that!”
Sylvia suddenly gave a little scream. The remembrance of the evening when she read about the Ancient Britons to poor Bates came vividly into her mind, and though she had since re-read the passage that had then attracted her attention a hundred times, it had never before presented itself to her in its full significance. Hurriedly turning the well-thumbed leaves, she read aloud the passage which had provoked remark:—