"I am sorry if its contents have alarmed you." She scarcely heard his words.

The room seemed wheeling round with her, the floor unsteady beneath her feet.

The atmosphere of the place had suddenly become horrible,--the faint odor of burning leaves, the pictures, almost like caricatures, which mocked her from the walls, the grinning idols, the strangely shaped weapons in their cases of black oak.

She faltered as she crossed the room, but recovered herself.
"Aunt," she said, "if you are ready, I think that we ought to go." The Duchess was more than ready.

She rose promptly.