He paused. His head sank upon his breast. His lips quivered. It was as if he were enduring over again some great sorrow.
“Perhaps,” he said after a long time, “one is foolish to grieve over what some would say is a trifle compared to other losses. But one comes to love books. They are his very dear friends. With them he shares his great pleasures. In times of sorrow they console him. Ah, yes, how wonderful they are, these books?” His eyes turned toward the shelves.
Then, suddenly, his voice changed. He hastened on. He seemed to desire to have done with it. One might have believed that there was something he was keeping back which he was afraid his lips might speak.
“I came to America,” he said hoarsely, “and here I am in your great city, alone save for this blessed child, and—and my books—some of my books—most of my books.”
Again he was silent. The room fell into such a silence that the very breathing of the old man sounded out like the exhaust of an engine. Somewhere in another room a clock ticked. It was ghostly.
Shaking herself free from the spell of it, Lucile said, “I—I think I must go.”
“No! No!” cried the old man. “Not until you have seen some of my treasures, my books.”
Leading her to the shelves, he took down volume after volume. He placed them in her hands with all the care of a salesman displaying rare and fragile china.
She looked at the outside of some; then made bold to open the covers and peep within. They were all beyond doubt very old and valuable. But one fact stood out in her mind as she finally bade them good night, stood out as if embossed upon her very soul: In the inside upper corner of the cover of every volume, done on expensive, age-browned paper, there was the same gargoyle, the same letter L as had been in the other mysterious volumes.
“The gargoyle’s secret,” she whispered as she came out upon the dark, damp streets. “The gargoyle’s secret. I wonder what it is!”