At the far end of the room
he saw deeper and darker shelves, where gleamed faintly in the
lamplight row upon row of vials and bottles and strange
instruments of steel and glass. A scientist in the wilderness--a
student exiled in a desolation! These were the thoughts that
leaped into his mind, and he knew that in this room Jeanne had
been created; that here, between these centuries-old walls, amid
an environment of strange silence, of whispering age, her visions
of the world had come. Here, separated from all her kind, God,
Nature, and a father had made her of their handiwork.
The old man pointed Philip to a chair near the large table, and
sat down close to him. At his feet was a stool covered with
silvery lynx-skin, and D'Arcambal looked at this, his strong, grim
face relaxing into a gentle smile of happiness.
"There is where Jeanne sits--at my feet," he said. "It has been
her place for many years. When she is not there I am lost. Life
ceases. This room has been our world. To-night you are in Fort o'
God; to-morrow you will see D'Arcambal House. You have heard of
that, perhaps, but never of Fort o' God. That belongs to Jeanne
and me, to Pierre--and you. Fort o' God is the heart, the soul,
the life's blood of D'Arcambal House.
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