Dexter's Palace, my dear,' she said. 'What do you think of it?'

I looked round me-not knowing what to think of it, if the truth must be told.

We had got out of the carriage, and we were standing on a rough half-made gravel path. Right and left of me, in the dim light, I saw the half-completed foundations of new houses in their first stage of existence. Boards and bricks were scattered about us. At places, gaunt scaffolding-poles rose like the branchless trees of the brick-desert. Behind us, on the other side of the high road, stretched another plot of waste ground, as yet not built on. Over the surface of this second desert, the ghastly white figures of vagrant ducks gleamed at intervals in the mystic light. In front of us, at a distance of two hundred yards or so, as well as I could calculate, rose a black mass which gradually resolved itself, as my eyes became accustomed to the twilight, into a long, low, and ancient house, with a hedge of evergreens and a pitch-black paling in front of it. The footman led the way towards the paling, through the boards and the bricks, the oyster-shells and the broken crockery, that strewed the ground. And this was 'Prince Dexter's Palace!'

There was a gate in the pitch-black paling, and a bell-handle -discovered with great difficulty. Pulling at the handle, the footman set in motion, to judge by the sound produced, a bell of prodigious size, fitter for a church than a house.

While we were waiting for admission, Mrs. Macallan pointed to the low dark line of the old building.

'There is one of his madnesses!' she said. 'The speculators in this new neighbourhood have offered him, I don't know how many thousand pounds for the ground that house stands on. It was originally the manor house of the district. Dexter purchased it, many years since, in one of his freaks of fancy. He has no old family associations with the place; the walls are all but tumbling about his ears; and the money

Look at it,

offered would really be of use to him. But, no! He refused the proposal of the enterprising speculators, by letter, in these words: "My house is a standing monument of the picturesque and beautiful, amid the mean, dishonest, and grovelling constructions of a mean, dishonest, and grovelling age. I keep my house, gentlemen, as a useful lesson to you. while you are building round me—and blush, if your own work." Was there ever such an absurd letter written yet? Hush! I hear footsteps in the garden. Here comes his cousin. His cousin is a woman. I may as well tell you that, or you might mistake her for a man, in the dark.'

you can, for

A rough, deep voice, which I should certainly never have supposed to be the voice of a woman, hailed us from the inner side of the paling.

'Who's there?'

'Mrs. Macallan,' answered my mother-in-law.

'What do you want?'

'We want to see Dexter.'

'You can't see him.'

'Why not?'

'What did yon say your name was?'

'Macallan. Mrs. Macallan. Eustace Macallan's mother. Now do you understand?'

The voice muttered and grunted behind the paling, and a key turned in the lock of the gate.

Admitted to the garden, in the deep shadow of the shrubs, I could see nothing distinctly of the woman with the rough voice, except that she wore a man's hat. Closing the gate behind us, without a word of welcome or explanation, she led the way to the house. Mrs. Macallan followed her easily, knowing the place; and I walked in Mrs. Macallan's footsteps as closely as I could. This is a nice family,' my mother-in-law whispered to me. 'Dexter's cousin is the only woman in the house, and Dexter's cousin is an idiot.'

We entered a spacious hall, with a low ceiling-dimly lit at its further end by one small oil lamp. I could see that there were pictures on the grim brown walls-but the subjects represented were invisible in the obscure and shadowy light. Mrs. Macallan addressed herself to the speechless cousin with the man's hat.

'Now tell me,' she said. 'Why can't we see Dexter?' The cousin took a sheet of paper off the hall table, and handed it to Mrs. Macallan.

The Master's writing!' said this strange creature, in a hoarse whisper, as if the bare idea of 'the Master' terrified her. Read it. And stay, or go, which you please.'

She opened an invisible side-door in the wall, masked by one of the pictures-disappeared through it like a ghost-and left us together alone in the hall.

Mrs. Macallan approached the oil lamp, and looked by its light at the sheet of paper which the woman had given to her. I followed, and peeped over her shoulder, without ceremony. The paper exhibited written characters, traced in a wonderfully large and firm handwriting. Had I caught the infection of madness in the air of the house? Or did I really see before me these words?

'NOTICE. My immense imagination is at work. Visions of heroes unroll themselves before me. I re-animate in myself the spirits of the departed great. My brains are boiling in my head. Any persons who disturb me, under existing circumstances, will do it at the peril of their lives.-DEXTER.' Mrs. Macallan looked round at me quietly with her sardonic smile.

'Do you still persist in wanting to be introduced to him?' she asked.

The mockery in the tone of the question roused my pride. I determined that I would not be the first to give way.

'Not if I am putting you in peril of your life, ma'am,' I answered, pertly enough, pointing to the paper in her hand.

"She opened an invisible side-door in the wall, masked by one of the pictures, disappeared through it like a ghost, and left us together."-p. 208