Five minutes
passed, and the girl appeared again at the door.
"Miss Vaughan says there is no answer, sir," she said, and let the
curtain fall into place again.
I made a gesture of despair; I felt that the game was lost.
"After all, Mr. Lester," said Silva, kindly, "what is this fate that
you would prepare for her? You seek her marriage with a young man who,
when I saw him, appeared to me merely commonplace. Admitting for the
moment that he is innocent of this crime, you would nevertheless
condemn her to an existence flat and savourless, differing in no
essential from that of the beasts of the field."
"It is the existence of all normal people," I pointed out, "and the
one which they are happiest in."
"But Miss Vaughan would not be happy. She has too great a soul; that
young man is not worthy of her. You yourself have felt it!"
I could not deny it.
"Few men are worthy of a good woman," I said lamely.
"Faugh! Good woman!" and he snapped his fingers. "I abhor the words!
They are simply cant! But a great woman, a woman of insight, of
imagination--ah, for such a woman the Way that I prepare is the only
Way. There she will find joy and inspiration; there she will grow in
knowledge; there she will breathe the breath of life! Mr.
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