She led me through the door and into a wide, dim corridor. She touched my arm and again I felt that
strange, vital tingling. She paused at another door, and faced me.
"It is here," she said, "that I keep my best. My-peculiarly best!"
Once more she laughed, then flung the door open.
I crossed the threshold and paused, looking about the room with swift disquietude. For here was no
spacious chamber of enchantment such as Walters had described. True enough, it was somewhat larger
than one would have expected. But where were the exquisite old panelings, the ancient tapestries, that
magic mirror which was like a great "half-globe of purest water," and all those other things that had made
it seem to her a Paradise?
The light came through the half-drawn curtains of a window opening upon a small, enclosed and barren