The Guests of Hercules

The Guests Of Hercules, by

C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson This eBook is for the use of
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Title: The Guests Of Hercules
Author: C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
Illustrator: M. Leone Bracker and Arthur H. Buckland
Release Date: October 18, 2006 [EBook #19569]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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THE GUESTS OF HERCULES

BOOKS BY C. N. and A. M. WILLIAMSON
The Golden Silence The Motor Maid Lord Loveland Discovers
America Set in Silver The Lightning Conductor The Princess Passes
My Friend the Chauffeur Lady Betty Across the Water Rosemary in
Search of a Father The Princess Virginia The Car of Destiny The
Chaperon

[Illustration: "MARY WAS A GODDESS ON A GOLDEN
PINNACLE. THIS WAS LIFE; THE WINE OF LIFE"]

The Guests of Hercules
BY C. N. and A. M. WILLIAMSON
ILLUSTRATED BY M. LEONE BRACKER & ARTHUR H.
BUCKLAND
GARDEN CITY NEW YORK DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY
1912

Copyright, 1912, by C. N. & A. M. WILLIAMSON
All rights reserved, including that of translation into Foreign Languages,
including the Scandinavian

TO THE LORD OF THE GARDEN

ILLUSTRATIONS
"Mary was a goddess on a golden pinnacle. This was life; the wine of

life" . . . . . . . Frontispiece
Mary Grant . . . . . . . . FACING PAGE 22
"'I can't promise!' she exclaimed. 'I've never wanted to marry.'" . 286
"'It was Fate brought you--to give you to me. Do you regret it?'" . 398

I
THE GUESTS OF HERCULES
Long shadows of late afternoon lay straight and thin across the garden
path; shadows of beech trees that ranged themselves in an undeviating
line, like an inner wall within the convent wall of brick; and the soaring
trees were very old, as old perhaps as the convent itself, whose stone
had the same soft tints of faded red and brown as the autumn leaves
which sparsely jewelled the beeches' silver.
A tall girl in the habit of a novice walked the path alone, moving
slowly across the stripes of sunlight and shadow which inlaid the gravel
with equal bars of black and reddish gold. There was a smell of autumn
on the windless air, bitter yet sweet; the scent of dying leaves, and
fading flowers loth to perish, of rose-berries that had usurped the place
of roses, of chrysanthemums chilled by frost, of moist earth deprived of
sun, and of the green moss-like film overgrowing all the trunks of the
old beech trees. The novice was saying goodbye to the convent garden,
and the long straight path under the wall, where every day for many
years she had walked, spring and summer, autumn and winter; days of
rain, days of sun, days of boisterous wind, days of white feathery
snow--all the days through which she had passed, on her way from
childhood to womanhood. Best of all, she had loved the garden and her
favourite path in spring, when vague hopes like dreams stirred in her
blood, when it seemed that she could hear the whisper of the sap in the
veins of the trees, and the crisp stir of the buds as they unfolded. She
wished that she could have been going out of the garden in the
brightness and fragrance of spring. The young beauty of the world

would have been a good omen for the happiness of her new life. The
sorrowful incense of Nature in decay cast a spell of sadness over her,
even of fear, lest after all she were doing a wrong thing, making a
mistake which could never be amended.
The spirit of the past laid a hand upon her heart. Ghosts of sweet days
gone long ago beckoned her back to the land of vanished hours. The
garden was the garden of the past; for here, within the high walls
draped in flowering creepers and ivy old as history, past, present, and
future were all as one, and had been so for many a tranquil generation
of calm-faced, dark-veiled women. Suddenly a great homesickness fell
upon the novice like an iron weight. She longed to rush into the house,
to fling herself at Reverend Mother's feet, and cry out that she wanted
to take back her decision, that she wanted everything to be as it had
been before. But it was too late to change. What was done, was done.
Deliberately, she had