"You must not do this, you must not do that," went past me through the
air. "You must not leave these narrow paths," said the rigid iron
railings of black. "You shall not walk here," was written on the lawns.
"Keep to the steps," "Don't pick the flowers; make no noise of laughter,
singing, dancing," was placarded all over the rose-garden, and
"Trespassers will be--not prosecuted but--destroyed" hung from the crest
of monkey tree and holly. Guarding the ends of each artificial terrace
stood gaunt, implacable policemen, warders, jailers. "Come with us,"
they chanted, "or be damned eternally."
I remember feeling quite pleased with myself that I had discovered this
obvious explanation of the prison feeling the place breathed out. That
the posthumous influence of heavy old Samuel Franklyn might be an
inadequate solution did not occur to me. By "getting the place straight
again," his widow, of course, meant forgetting the glamour of fear and
foreboding his depressing creed had temporarily forced upon her; and
Frances, delicately minded being, did not speak of it because it was the
influence of the man her friend had loved. I felt lighter; a load was
lifted from me. "To trace the unfamiliar to the familiar," came back a
sentence I had read somewhere, "is to understand.
Pages:
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58