In a way, the
presence of this book gave him a sort of shock, and he took it in
his hands, and opened the cover. Under his fingers were pages
yellow and frayed with age, and in an ancient type, once black,
the title, The Meaning of God. In a large masculine hand some one
had written under this title the accompanying words; "A black skin
often contains a white soul; a woman's beauty, hell."
Philip replaced the book with a feeling of awe. Something in those
words, brutal in their truth--something in the strange whim that
had placed a pearl of purity within the faded and worn mask of the
condemned, seemed to speak to him of a tragedy that might be a key
to the mystery of Fort o' God. From the books he looked up at the
picture which had been turned to the wall. The temptation to see
what was hidden overcame him, and he turned the frame over. Then
he stepped back with a low cry of pleasure.
From out of the proscribed canvas there smiled down upon him a
face of bewildering beauty. It was the face of a young woman, a
stranger among its companions, because it was of the present.
Philip stepped to one side, so that the light from the lamp shone
from behind him, and he wondered if the picture had been condemned
to hang with its face to the wall because it typified the existent
rather than the past.
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