CHAPTER VIII.
The Squire having shot his bolt, looked anxiously for the effect of it.
Elizabeth, apparently, took it calmly.

She was standing with one hand on the table behind her, and the autumn sun streaming in through the western windows caught the little golden curls on her temples, and the one or two small adornments that she habitually wore, especially a Greek coin--a gold stater--hanging on a slender chain round her neck.

In the Squire's eyes, the stately figure in plain black, with the brilliant head and hands, had in some way gathered into itself the significance of the library.

All the background of books, with its pale and yet rich harmony of tone, the glass cases with their bronzes and terra-cottas, the statues, the papers on the table, the few flowers that were never wanting to Elizabeth's corner, the taste with which the furniture had been re-arranged, the general elegance and refinement of the big room in fact, since Elizabeth had reduced it from chaos to order, were now related to her rather than to him.

He could not now think of the room without her.