Dalibard turned away.
"Come!" he said with some impatience; and the boy took up his hat.
In another minute Lucretia was alone.
"Alone," in an English home, is a word implying no dreary solitude to an accomplished woman; but alone in that foreign land, alone in those half-furnished, desolate apartments,--few books, no musical instruments, no companions during the day to drop in,--that loneliness was wearying.
And that mind so morbidly active! In the old Scottish legend, the spirit that serves the wizard must be kept constantly employed; suspend its work for a moment, and it rends the enchanter.

It is so with minds that crave for excitement, and live, without relief of heart and affection, on the hard tasks of the intellect.
Lucretia mused over Gabriel's words and warning: "To be safe, you must know all his secrets, or none." What was the secret which Dalibard had not communicated to her?
She rose, stole up the cold, cheerless stairs, and ascended to the attic which Dalibard had lately hired.

It was locked; and she observed that the lock was small,--so small that the key might be worn in a ring.

She descended, and entered her husband's usual cabinet, which adjoined the sitting-room.

All the books which the house contained were there,--a few works on metaphysics, Spinoza in especial, the great Italian histories, some volumes of statistics, many on physical and mechanical philosophy, and one or two works of biography and memoirs.