His ancestors had been pioneer Indian fighters, and the large house built of rough stone, just as taken from the quarry, dated back to the time when the red man roamed the almost unbroken forest.
In all the years while Leola had lived here with her governess in the lonely old house, she could not remember a caress from the mysterious, self-absorbed old man, who seemed to have no human interests or passions, and to care for no one but the dwarfish servitor who helped him in his laboratory, the only person he ever admitted within its precincts.
It was no wonder, then, that Leola followed Wizard Hermann unwillingly into the musty-smelling library, with its high walnut wainscot, dingy, green-stenciled walls, and side shelves lined with old leather volumes, while the bare oaken floor on which she trod was worn with the footsteps of successive generations who had passed from earth in the fullness of time and been gathered to their fathers.
In the somber room with its closed shutters Leola stood facing her grim guardian with the impatient air of some beautiful young princess giving audience to a vassal.
As he stood hesitating where to begin, with an unwonted diffidence, she said, coldly:
“Speak; tell me your wish at once, sir, for I must hurry. I have an engagement in town with my dressmaker.”
At those words Wizard Hermann’s gloomy brow cleared as if by magic, and quickly striking his lean, scarred hands together, he retorted, maliciously:
“An engagement with your dressmaker, eh, my proud lady? Very well, while you are there you may give the woman an order for your wedding gown.”
“Sir,” she uttered, in amazement, her cheeks reddening.
Wizard Hermann retorted, with a hoarse, sardonic laugh: