His
face fell. Kate saw it, and did him some injustice. They walked on in
silence, in the shadow of a high wall. Kate looked up at the top of the
wall and stopped. Alec looked at her. Her face was as full of light as
a diamond in the sun. He forgot all his jealousy. The fresh tide of his
love swept it away, or at least covered it. On the top of the wall, in
the sun, grew one wild scarlet poppy, a delicate transparent glory,
through which the sunlight shone, staining itself red, and almost
dissolving the poppy.
The red light melted away the mist between them, and they walked in it
up to the ruined walls. Long grass grew about them, close to the very
door, which was locked, that if old Time could not be kept out, younger
destroyers might. Other walls stood around, vitrified by fire--the
remnants of an older castle still, about which Jamblichus might have
spied the lingering phantoms of many a terrible deed.
They entered by the door in the great tower, under the spiky remnants
of the spiral stair projecting from the huge circular wall. To the
right, a steep descent, once a stair, led down to the cellars and the
dungeon; a terrible place, the visible negations of which are horrid,
and need no popular legends such as Alec had been telling Kate, of a
walled-up door and a lost room, to add to their influence.
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