"That has an interpretation," he said, smiling, as he. handed a pair to Nasmith, "but I won't read the legend for you. You must learn to read it for yourself. And this too has its interpretation," he said, before translating Beresford's scroll:—
"Mirth becomes the time of danger;
Sadness suits the time of love."
"Now," he said, "I have puzzled you like the old Delphic oracle,—wasn't it?—but I have written only what I see with my own eyes. If my interpretations do not come true, it will be for one reason: it will be because I am unable to control what shall be written on my own scrolls."
"An extraordinary man," Beresford commented, after good-byes had been said.
"And a most unhappy one," added his friend. "I don't think he will invite us again."
CHAPTER XI
For a long time Herrick sat in quiet, like a figure in meditation. The drowsiness of the afternoon seemed to have pervaded his spirit, the strange stillness now reigning over the house after all the laughter that had gone before. Three or four times the man took up his brushes, tapered the hairs to a slender point, then replaced the brass caps and put back the pens idly into their stand. At last he called for Nancy, made her sit down, and asked her to tell the whole story of yesterday's adventure. The perfidy of the monks angered him.
"I shall raze their temple to its foundations," he exclaimed, "and drive them forth homeless like the wolves they are!" But one knew, in listening to him, these words would never be fulfilled.
He was particular that Nancy should be explicit about all she had done, all she had said, at the home of the Ferrises.