Picture a summer evening sombre and sweet over Spain, the glittering sheen of leaves fading to soberer colours, the sky in the west all soft, and mysterious as low music, and in the east like a frown....

Ramon Alonzo had travelled all day, and was twenty-five miles from his home; and now alone amongst darkness and storm and rocks he saw yet no sign of the house he sought, or any shelter at all. He had...

As Ramon Alonzo supped that tall figure of magic stood opposite without moving, and spoke no more; so that the young man ate hastily and soon had finished. He rose from the table, the other signed wit...

When the crone had revealed the mean and trivial purpose for which the Master of the Art had cast her helpless upon the ages, she voiced her regrets no more; but, once more warning the young man again...

Before that day had passed Ramon Alonzo had learned the alphabet. He did not master it in one lesson; yet when the magician ceased all in the midst of his wonders, in order that Ramon Alonzo should ha...

To the Tower beside the forest rumour came seldom, for it was the last house that stood in the open lands; on the one side the forest cut it off entirely from converse with other folk, on the other on...

So fast the magician came striding back to his room with the letter he had from Peter, that Ramon Alonzo’s eye had scarce time to rove, and had not found the long thin box for which it began to seek. ...

Next morning Ramon Alonzo descended blithely the steps of timber and stone, and soon he was listening to the magician’s lecture with his thoughts away in the village of Aragona. The magician explained...

In the glittering morning that came even to that wood, through layers and layers of leafiness, Ramon Alonzo arose; and first he found the charwoman, at work where she mostly worked, on that deep-stain...

The work of the morning was to learn the correct application of the smooth philosopher’s stone to the surfaces of metals that had been already so blended that they approached in texture and colour to ...

“So it does not grow,” said Ramon Alonzo bitterly. He was all alone on the hill and the girls had fled. Alone with a mere strip of gloom; a thing refused by the charwoman. So this was the shadow he ha...

When Ramon Alonzo appeared next day in the room that was sacred to magic the magician was there before him. “You have a fine strong shadow,” said the magician. Certainly it lay black and bold on the f...

Next morning Ramon Alonzo rose full early, all impatience to do Mirandola’s errand, all eagerness to exercise his new skill. That day the magician was to teach him more spells and alternative ingredie...

When Ramon Alonzo came out of the wood he saw that the shadows were already shortening. He saw then that he had delayed too long with the charwoman, and should have started while shadows were long, an...

Ramon Alonzo ran on in the night, then dropped to a walk, and soon he no more than sauntered along the road, whose greyness before him seemed the only light on earth. Above him the whiteness of the Mi...

Mirandola came back from the edge of the forest wondering, over wild heath to the garden. It had been her wont to know what her brother did, and even what he thought. But now he had some thought that ...

The day dawned splendidly, and air and fields glittered all the morning with sunlight, which welled up over the world and was only stopped by the forest. Her mother called Mirandola to the room in whi...

The look on the face of the Duke of Shadow Valley was gradually growing stranger. The outlines of his face were wearying; his quick glances roamed no more, but turned to his plate listlessly; and he w...

Gonsalvo and Gulvarez went early to the Duke’s bedchamber to assure themselves that the hopes of last night were just and that the Duke would live. He still lay weakly upon his bed but his anger flame...

And that day went by with its splendours and was added to past days; and night came up and covered the skies of Spain, and the magician sat all alone in his house in the wood. He was not wholly hostil...

Through the wood to which Ramon Alonzo had gone with his plans he walked disconsolate. What would he do when all his plans had succeeded and he had got back his shadow, if this sinister thing of gloom...

Shadowless Ramon Alonzo went through the wood, as miserable in every glade and every shaft of sunlight as a man that crept through a city after being robbed of his raiment would feel whenever he came ...

When the charwoman found that the despair of Ramon Alonzo was so vigorous that she could bring him no comfort then, she went back to the dismal haunt of her brooms and pans, while he went lurking down...

Ramon Alonzo descended, ate hungrily, and hastened to the room that was sacred to magic; and there was the Master in his usual place. There was reproach in the Master’s eye for the young man’s latenes...

“Long ago,” said the charwoman, “a long long while ago, I dwelt in my father’s cottage in Aragona. I had naught to do in all those sunny days but to tend his garden, or sing; unless in winter I someti...

They felt that they were safe in that honest sunlight. And Ramon Alonzo, sitting near the old crone while she rested, looked longingly at that young and delicate shadow which he had not thought to see...

As Ramon Alonzo and Anemone wandered away from the wood her memories of pails and old age and the magical house dwindled faster, and she seemed even younger than her face amongst its little curls, and...

Thus it came about that the Lord of the Tower sent again for Father Joseph, and bade him write him a letter; and the letter was folded and sealed and given to Peter to bear to Ramon Alonzo at the magi...

This was the seventh day of the Duke’s illness. Of his wrath none knew, for he had no wrath for Mirandola, and none else durst venture into his presence to see. But his illness was waning fast, and it...

When Ramon Alonzo read his father’s letter a fear came into his daydreams, and he stood a long while wondering. Peter stood before him gazing into his face, and Anemone by his side was quietly reading...