He found it with even less
difficulty than he had experienced in the wrong corridor, inserted the
key in the lock, and with intense satisfaction felt it slip into place.
He inhaled a long breath of the lifeless air, turned the key, and threw
the door open. One step forward he took...
A whistle (God! he knew it!) a low, minor whistle, wavered through the
stillness. He was enveloped, mantled, choked, by the perfume of ROSES!
The door, which, although it had opened easily, had seemed to be a
remarkably heavy one, swung to behind him; he heard the click of the
lock. Like a trapped animal, he turned, leaped back, and found his
quivering hands in contact with books--books--books...
A lamp lighted up in the center of the room.
Soames turned and stood pressed closely against the book-shelves,
against the book-shelves which magically had grown up in front of the
door by which he had entered. He was in the place of books and roses--in
the haunt of MR. KING!
A great clarity of mind came to him, as it comes to a drowning man; he
knew that those endless passages, through which once he had been led
in darkness, did not exist, that he had been deceived, had been guided
along the same corridor again and again; he knew that this room of roses
did not lie at the heart of a labyrinth, but almost adjoined the cave of
the golden dragon.
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