The old stone palace in which Margaret Garrison had made her winter home stood on a slight eminence that lifted it above and away from a squalid region of uncleanly, crowded, and incredibly noisy streets. It stood aloof from these things, withdrawn from them as much by significance as by space. From the surrounding flood of turbid life a short avenue wound upwards under large trees, past a gray stone parapet, a crumbling statue, a simple fountain in which water splashed unceasingly, to the portone under which passed the carriages and automobiles that carried fashionable life to and from the strangers who occupied the piano nobile on the first floor. In these early winter days leaves, yellow and brown, were falling into the fountain and on the parapet of gray and ancient stone. The sunlight shone briefly over the high damp walls of inclosing houses, and whether the spot was occupied by the carriages and footmen of modern pleasure-seekers, or whether it was empty and silent, the old palace and its approach kept their atmosphere in-
