winged elbow-chair—his “Considering Chair,” as he was wont to describe it—and looked around smiling.

“Still at the same studies, father? How sweet it smells in this room! It looks smaller than I remember it. I once thought it was as big as a cathedral. But I myself felt smaller then. How long ago it seems! And what is that discovery that I came just in time for?”

Master Rickart engaged willingly enough in the track of that pleasant thought.

“Why, my dear, simply that an old surmise of mine was right. Ha, ha, I was right.... The active principle of Geranium Cyanthos with the root of which, as Fabricius relates—Fabricius, the great Dutch traveller and plant-hunter—the Kaffir warlocks are said to cure dysentery.... It is positively identical with a similar crystalline substance which I have for many years obtained from Hedera Warneriensis—the species of ivy that grows about the ruins of Bindhurst Abbey, of which mention is made by Prynne....”

Thus he rambled on with the selfish garrulity of the old man in the grip of his hobby; presently, however, he fell back to addressing himself rather than his listener, and gradually subsided into reflectiveness. And once more silence drew upon the room.

18

CHAPTER III RUSTLING LEAVES OF MEMORY

RUSTLING LEAVES OF MEMORY

Dobson

Long drawn minutes, ticked off by the slow beat of the laboratory clock, dropped into the abysm of the past.

Master Simon, sunk in his chair, his head bent on his breast, had fallen into a deep muse. His eyes, fixed upon the face of his daughter—fair and thrown into fairer relief by Belphegor’s black muzzle nestling close to it—had gradually gathered to themselves that blank, unseeing look which betrays a mind set upon inner things.

Ellinor sat still, her shapely hands folded on her lap. She was glad of the rest, for this was the end of a weary journey. She was glad, also, of the silence, which gave room to her clamourous thought.

Home again! The only home 

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