The Master Mummer

by E. Phillips Oppenheim

"I do not know any reason" Isobel answered, "why I should do your bidding."

---

The Archduchess was silent for a moment. I think that she was waiting until she could control her voice.

"Isobel," she said, "I will tell you a very good reason. I cannot keep silence any longer. They will not give you up to me any other way, so I have come to claim you openly. You shall know the truth. I am your mother's sister!"

Isobel rose slowly to her feet. She was as tall as the Archduchess, and the likeness which had always haunted me was unmistakable. Only Isobel was of the finer mould, and her eyes were different.

"Why did you not tell me this before—at the Mordaunt Rooms, for instance?" she asked.

"You came upon me like a thunderclap," the Archduchess answered quickly. "For years we had lost all trace of you. Besides, there were reasons—you know that there were reasons why I might surely have been forgiven for hesitating. But let that go. We had better have your story blazoned out once more to the world than that you should live your life in this hole-and-corner fashion. I shall take you back to Waldenburg. I presume, sir!" she added, turning suddenly towards me, "that even you will not question my right to assume the guardianship of my own niece?"

The memory of Feurgéres' look came to my aid, or I scarcely know how I should have answered her.

"Your Highness," I said, "it is for Isobel to decide. She is no longer a child. Only I would remind you that you have on more than one occasion endeavoured to assume that guardianship without mentioning any such relationship."

"You know Isobel's history," the Archduchess answered. "Can you wonder that I was anxious to avoid all publicity?"

"Your Highness," I said, "we do not know Isobel's history—yet. We shall hear it to-night."

"He has not told you—yet?" she asked incredulously.

"He is coming to my rooms to-night," I answered.

"You shall hear it before then," she exclaimed, with a little laugh. "Put on your hat, child. We will drive to my house, you and I and Mr. Greatson, and I will tell you everything. You will know then how greatly that man insulted you by daring to allow you to occupy this box, to approach you at all."

"Madame," Isobel said, "I thank you, but I wish to hear the end of the play. And as for my history, Monsieur Feurgéres has promised to tell it to Mr. Greatson to-night."

I saw the Archduchess's teeth meet, and a spot of colour that burned in her cheeks.

"You talk like a fool, child," she said fiercely. "You are being deceived on every side. It is not fit that that man should come into your presence. It is a disgrace that you should mention his name."

"Mr.—Monsieur Feurgéres has proved himself my friend," Isobel answered quietly.

The Archduchess's eyes were burning. She was a woman of violent temper, and it was fast becoming beyond her control.

"Child," she said, "I am your aunt, the daughter of the King of Waldenburg. You, too, are of the same race. You know well that I speak the truth. How dare you talk to me of a creature like Feurgéres? You have our blood in your veins. I command you to come with me, and break off at once and for ever these remarkable associations. You shall make what return you will later on to those whom you may think"—she darted a contemptuous glance at me—"have been your friends. But from this moment I claim you. Come!"

Isobel looked her aunt in the face. She spoke courteously, but without faltering.

"Madame," she said, "it is not possible for me to do as you ask. Whatever plans are made for my future, it is to my dear friend here," she said, looking across at me with shining eyes, "that I owe everything. And as for Monsieur Feurgéres, I have promised him to occupy this box for this evening, and I shall do so."

The Archduchess was very white.

"You force me to tell you, child," she said. "This creature Feurgéres was your mother's——"

"Your Highness!" I cried.

She stopped short and bit her lip. Isobel was very pale, but she pointed to the door. The orchestra had commenced to play.

"Madame," she said, "Monsieur Feurgéres loved my mother. I shall keep my word to him."

There was a soft knock at the door. Captain Milton stood on the threshold.

"Your Highness," he said, bowing low, "the curtain will rise in thirty seconds."

The Archduchess left us without a word.

---

CHAPTER XII

It was not often we permitted ourselves such luxuries, but as we left the theatre I caught a glimpse of Isobel's white face, more clearly visible now than in the dimly lit box, and I knew that, bravely though she had carried herself through the whole of that trying evening, she was not far from breaking down. So I called a hansom, and she sank back in a corner with a little sigh of relief. I lit a cigarette, and suddenly I felt a cold little hand steal into mine. I set my teeth and held it firmly.

"Arnold," she whispered, and her voice was none too steady, "I hate that woman. I do not care if she is my aunt; and—Arnold——"

"Yes."

"I believe that she hates me too. She looks at me as though I were something unpleasant, as though she wished me dead. I will not go to her, Arnold. Say that I shall not."

For a moment I was silent. Her little womanish airs of the last few months, the quaint effort of dignity with which it seemed to have pleased her to add all that was possible to her years, had wholly departed. She was a child again, with frightened eyes and quivering lips, the child who had walked so easily into our hearts in those first days of her terror. To think of her as such again was almost a relief.

"Dear Isobel," I said, "the Archduchess has told me now two different stories concerning you. She appears to be very anxious to have you in her care, but her methods up to the present have been very strange. We shall not give you up to her unless we are obliged. But——"

"Please what, Arnold?" she interrupted anxiously.

"If the Archduchess is indeed your aunt, as she says she is, you must have hundreds of other relations, many of whom you would without doubt find very different people. Besides, in that case, you see, Isobel, you ought to be living altogether differently. It is absurd for you to be grubbing along with us in an attic when you ought to be living in a palace, with plenty of money and servants and beautiful frocks, and all that sort of thing. You understand me, don't you?" I concluded a little lamely, for the steady gaze of those deep blue frightened eyes was a little disconcerting.

"No, I do not," she answered. "If I am a Waldenburg and the niece of the Archduchess, why was I left alone at that convent for all those years, and who was responsible for sending that man to fetch me away—that terrible man? How are they going to explain that, these wonderful relations of mine? Oh, Arnold, Arnold!" she cried, suddenly swaying over towards me in the cab, "I don't want to leave you—all. Do not send me away. Promise that you will not!"

A child, I told myself fiercely, a mere child this! Nevertheless I was thankful for the darkness of the silent street into which we had turned, the darkness which hid my face from her. Her soft breath was upon my cheek, her beautiful head very near my shoulder. Oh, I had need of all my strength, of all my common-sense.

"Dear Isobel," I said, looking straight ahead of me out of the cab, "I cannot make you any promise. All must depend upon what Monsieur Feurgéres tells us to-night. Nothing would make me—all of us—happier than to keep you with us always. But it may not be our duty to keep you, or yours to stay. Until we have heard Feurgéres' story we are in the dark."

She shrank, as it seemed, into herself. Her eyes followed mine hauntingly.

"Arnold," she said, with a little tremor in her tone, "you are not very kind to me to-night, and I feel—that I want—people to be kind to me just now."

I bent down, and I raised her hands to my lips and kissed them.

"My dear child," I said, "don't forget that I am your guardian, and I have to think for you—a long way ahead. As for the rest, I have not a single thought or hope in life which is not concerned for your happiness."

"I like that better," she murmured; "but—you are very fond of my hands."

Fortunately the cab pulled up with a jerk. I paid the man, and we commenced to climb up the stone steps towards our rooms. Isobel, who was generally a couple of flights ahead, slipped her hand through my arm and leaned heavily upon me.

"Arnold," she whispered, "why would you not read your story to me. Tell me, please!"

"My dear child!" I exclaimed, "what made you think of that just now?"

She leaned forward. I think that she was trying to look into my face.

"Never mind! Please tell me," she begged.

"I will read it some day," I answered. "It is so incomplete. I think I shall have to rewrite it."

She shook her head.

"You have always read to me before just as you have written it. I think that you are not quite so nice to me, Arnold, as you were. I haven't done anything that you do not like, have I? Because I am sure that you are different!"

"You absurd child," I answered, smiling at her as cheerfully as I could. "You are in an imaginative frame of mind to-night."

"It is not that! You look at me differently, you do not seem to want to have me with you so much, and——"

I stopped her. We had reached the fourth floor, where our apartments were. With the key in the lock I turned and faced her for a moment. She was as tall as I, and a certain grace of carriage which she had always possessed, and which had grown with her years, redeemed her completely from the gaucherie of her uncomfortable age. Her features had gained in strength, and lost nothing in delicacy. She wore even her simple clothes with the nameless grace which must surely have come to her from inheritance. I spoke to her then seriously. Yet if I had tried I could not have kept the kindness from my tone.

"Dear Isobel," I said, "if there is any difference—think! A year ago you were a child. To-day you are a woman. You must understand that, side by side with the pleasure of having you with us—the greatest pleasure that has ever come into our lives, Isobel—has come a certain amount of responsibility."

"I am becoming a trouble to you, then!" she exclaimed breathlessly.

"A trouble, Isobel!"

I suppose I weakened for a moment. Some trick of tone or expression must have let in the daylight, for she suddenly held out her hands with a soft little cry. And then as she stood there, her eyes shining, the old delightful smile curving her lips, the door before which she stood was thrown open, and Arthur stood there. He had on his hat and coat, and I saw at once that he was not himself. His cheeks were flushed with anger, and he looked at us with a black frown.

"So you've come back, then!" he exclaimed. "Allan and I got tired of waiting. Just in time to say good-bye, Isobel. I'm off!"

"Off? But where?" she asked, looking at him in surprise.

I left them, and passed on into our studio sitting-room, where Mabane was filling his pipe.

"What's the matter with Arthur?" I asked.

"Off his chump," Allan answered gravely. "Don't take any notice of him."

Isobel and he were still talking together. Arthur's voice was a little raised—then it suddenly dropped.

"I think," Allan said, "that you had better interfere. Arthur has lost his temper. I am afraid——"

"He will break the compact?" I exclaimed.

"I am afraid so!"

I stepped back into the little hall. They were talking together earnestly. Arthur looked up and glared at me.

"Arthur," I said, "Allan and I want a few words with you before you go—if you are going out to-night."

"In a moment," he answered. "I have something to say to Isobel."

But Isobel had gone. He looked for a moment at the door of her room through which she had vanished, and then he turned on his heel and followed me. He threw his hat upon the table and faced us both defiantly.

"It is I," he said, "who have something to say to you, and I'd like to get it over quick. D—n your hypocritical compact, Arnold Greatson! There! You're in love with Isobel! Any fool can see it, and you want to keep the child all to yourself."

Allan took a quick step forward, but I held out my hand.

"Don't interfere, Allan," I said. "Let him say all that he has to say."

"I mean to!" Arthur continued, "and I hope you'll like it. The compact was a fraud from beginning to end, and I'll have no more to do with it. Isobel's too old to live here with you fellows, and I'm going to ask her to marry me. I'm going to advise her to go and stay with Lady Delahaye, who wants her, and I'm going to marry her from there if she'll have me."

"Lady Delahaye," I repeated thoughtfully. "You have been in communication with her, have you?"

"Yes, I have! And I think she's right. Isobel ought to have some women friends. She may have enemies, but I'm not so sure about that. Lady Delahaye isn't one of them, at any rate. The people who want to get her away from here may be her best friends, after all."

"Is that all, Arthur?"

"It's enough, isn't it?" he answered doggedly.

"Quite! Now listen," I said. "To-night we are going to hear Isobel's history. We are going to know who she is, and all about her. Stay with us, and you shall share the knowledge. As for the rest, you have been talking like a fool. We do not wish to take you seriously. We took up the charge of Isobel jointly. If the time has come now for us to give her up, I should like us all to be in agreement. It is very likely that the time has come. I, too, think that in many ways it would be for her benefit. We are prepared to give her up when we know the proper people to undertake the care of her—but never, Arthur, to Lady Delahaye."

Arthur smiled slowly, but it was not a pleasant smile.

"Ah!" he said, "I forgot. Lady Delahaye is an old friend of yours, isn't she?"

"Your insinuations are childish, Arthur," I answered. "Lady Delahaye is an old friend of the Archduchess's, and their interest in Isobel is identical. For many reasons I am going to know Isobel's history before I give her up to either of them."

"And who is going to tell it to you?" he asked.

"Feurgéres," I answered. "He sent for us at the theatre to-night. He is coming on here."

There was a sharp tapping at the door. I moved across the room to open it. Arthur threw his hat upon the table.

"I will wait!" he declared.

---

CHAPTER XIII

We all knew Isobel's history. It had taken barely twenty minutes to tell it, but they had been twenty minutes of tragedy. We were all, I think, in different ways affected. Monsieur Feurgéres alone sat back in his seat like a carved image, his face white and haggard, his deep-set eyes fixed upon vacancy. We felt that he had passed wholly away from the world of present things. He himself was lingering amongst the shadows of that wonderful past, upon which he had only a moment before dropped the curtain. He had told us to ask him questions, but I for my part felt that questions just then were a sacrilege. Arthur, however, seemed to feel nothing of this. It was he who took the lead.

"Isobel, then," he said, "is the granddaughter of the King of Waldenburg, the only child of his eldest daughter! Her mother was divorced from her husband, Prince of Herrshoff, and afterwards married to you. What about her father?"

"He died two years after the divorce was granted," Feurgéres said without turning his head. "Isobel was hurried away from the Court through the influence of her aunt, the Archduchess of Bristlaw, and sent to a convent in France. It was not intended that she should ever reappear at the Court of Waldenburg."

"Why not?"

"The King is very old, and he is the richest man in Europe. Isobel is the daughter of his eldest and favourite child. The Archduchess also has a daughter, and, failing Isobel, she will inherit."

"Has the King," I asked, "taken any steps to discover Isobel?"

"He has been told that she is dead," Feurgéres answered.

We were all silent then for several minutes. The things which we had heard were strange enough, but they let in a flood of light upon all the events of the last few months. It was Feurgéres himself who broke in upon our thoughts.

"Gentlemen," he said, "there is another thing which I must tell you."

His voice was very low but firm. He had turned in his chair, and was facing us all. His eyes were no longer vacant. He spoke as one speaks of sacred things.

"All Europe," he said, "was pleased to discuss what was called the elopement of the Princess Isobel with Feurgéres the player. The gutter-press of the world filled their columns with sensational and scandalous lies. We at no time made any reply. There was no need. If now I break the silence of years it is that Isobel shall know the truth. It is you, Mr. Greatson, who will tell her this, and many other things. Listen carefully to what I say. The husband of the Princess Isobel was a blackguard, a man unfit for the society of any self-respecting woman. She was living in misery when I was bidden to the Court of Waldenburg. I was made the more welcome there, perhaps, because I myself am a descendant of an ancient and honourable French family. I met the Princess Isobel often, and we grew to love each other. Of the struggle which ensued between her sense of duty and my persuasions I say nothing. She was a highly sensitive and very intellectual woman, and she had a profound conviction of the unalienable right of a woman to live out her life to its fullest capacity, to gather into it to the full all that is best and greatest. Her position at Waldenburg was impossible. I proved it to her. I prevailed. But——"

He paused, and held up his hand.

"The whole story of our elopement was a lie. There was no elopement. The Princess Isobel left her husband accompanied only by a maid and a lady-in-waiting. They lived quietly in Paris until her husband procured his divorce. Then we were married, but until then we had not met since our parting at Waldenburg. Isobel's mother was ever a pure and holy woman. Let Isobel know that. Let her know that the greatest and most wonderful sacrifice a woman ever made was surely hers—when she denied herself her own daughter lest the merest shadow of shame should rest upon her in later years. It is for that same reason that I myself have kept away from Isobel. I have watched over her always, but at a distance. That is why I am content to stand aside even now and yield up my place to strangers."

It was Arthur again who questioned him.

"Mr. Feurgéres," he said, "you have told us wonderful things about Isobel. You have told us wonderful things about the past, but you have not spoken at all about the future. Is it your wish that she returns to Waldenburg, or is she to remain Isobel de Sorrens?"

Feurgéres turned his head and looked searchingly at Arthur. The boy's face was flushed with excitement. He made no effort to conceal his great interest. Feurgéres looked at him steadfastly, and it was long before he spoke.

"You are asking me," he said slowly, "the very question which I have been asking myself for a long time. Isobel's proper place is at Waldenburg, and yet there are many and grave reasons why I dread her going there. The King is an old man, the Court is ruled by the Archduchess, a hard, unscrupulous woman. Already she has schemed to get the child into her power. I dread the thought of her there, alone and friendless. Her mother spoke of this to me upon her deathbed. She shrank always from the idea that even the shadow of those hideous calumnies which oppressed her own life should darken a single moment of Isobel's. I believe that if she were here at this moment she would place the two issues before her and bid her take her choice. I think that it is what we must do."

Arthur stood up. He looked very eager and handsome, though a little boyish.

"Monsieur Feurgéres," he said, "I love Isobel. Give her to me, and I will look after her future. I am not rich, but I will make a home for her. She is too old to stay here with us any longer. I will make her happy! Indeed I will!"

Monsieur Feurgéres looked back at that vacant spot upon the wall, and was silent for some time. It was impossible to gather anything from his face, though Arthur watched him fixedly all the time.

"And Isobel?" he asked at length.

"I have not spoken to her," Arthur said. "There was a compact between us that we should not whilst she was under our care."

Monsieur Feurgéres turned to me.

"That sounds like a compact of your making, Arnold Greatson," he said. "What am I to say to your friend?"

"It is surely," I said, "for Isobel to decide. It is only another issue to be placed before her with those others of which you have spoken. You say that you must leave for St. Petersburg to-morrow. Will you see her now?"

He shook his head. I might almost have imagined him indifferent but for the sudden twitching of his lips, the almost pitiful craving which flashed out for a moment from his deep-set eyes. These were signs which came and went so quickly that I doubt if either of the others observed them. But I at least understood.

"I will not see her at all," he said. "It is better that I should not. If she should decide upon Waldenburg, the less she has seen of me the better. I leave it to you, Arnold Greatson, to put these matters faithfully before Isobel. I claim no guardianship over her. Her mother's sole desire was that when she had reached her present age the whole truth should be placed before her, and she should decide exactly as she thought best. That is my charge upon you," he continued, looking me steadfastly in the face, "and I know that you will fulfil it. I shall send you my address in case it is necessary to communicate with me."

He rose to his feet, prepared for departure. Arthur intercepted him.

"If Isobel will have me, then," he said, "you will not object?"

"Isobel shall make her own choice of these various issues," he answered. "I claim no guardianship over her at all. If any further decision has to be given, you must look to Mr. Greatson."

Arthur did look at me, but his eyes fell quickly. He turned once more to Monsieur Feurgéres.

"Whether you claim it or not," he said, "you are really her guardian, not Arnold. I shall tell her that you left her free to choose."

"I have said all that I have to say," Monsieur Feurgéres replied. "Except this to you, Mr. Greatson," he added, turning to me. "You can have no longer any hesitation in using the money which stands in Isobel's name at the National Bank. You will find that it has accumulated, and I have also added to it. Isobel will always be reasonably well off, for I have left all that I myself possess to her, with the exception of one legacy."

Without any further form of farewell he passed away from us. It was so obviously his wish to be allowed to depart that we none of us cared to stop him. Then we all three looked at one another.

"To-morrow," Mabane said, "you must tell Isobel."

"Why not to-night?" Arthur interposed.

"Why not to-night, indeed?" Isobel's soft voice asked. "If, indeed, there is anything more to tell."

We were all thunderstruck as she glided out from behind the screen which shielded the inner door, the door which led to her room. It needed only a single glance into her face to assure us that she knew everything. Her eyes were still soft with tears, shining like stars as she stood and looked at me across the floor; her cheeks were pale, and her lips were still quivering.

"I heard my name," she said. "The door was unfastened, so I stole out. And I think that I am glad I did. I had a right to know all that I have heard. It is very wonderful. I keep thinking and thinking, and even now I cannot realize."

"You heard everything, Isobel?" Arthur exclaimed meaningly.

"Everything!" she answered, her eyes suddenly seeking the carpet. "I thank you all for what you have said and done for me. To-morrow, I think, I shall know better how I feel about these things."

"Quite right, Isobel," Allan said quietly. "There are great issues before you, and you should live with them for a little while. Do not decide anything hastily!"

Arthur pressed forward to her side.

"You will give me your hand, Isobel?" he pleaded. "You will say good-night?"

She gave it to him passively. He raised it to his lips. It was his active pronouncement of himself as her suitor. I watched her closely, and so did Allan. But she gave no sign. She held out her hand to us, too—a cold, sad little hand it felt—and turned away. There was something curiously subdued about her movements as well as her silence as she passed out of sight.

Arthur took up his hat. He was nervous and uneasy. His tone was almost threatening.

"I shall be here early in the morning," he said. "I suppose you will allow me to see Isobel?"

"By all means," I answered. "As things are now you need not go away unless you like. Your room is still empty. Our compact is at an end. Stay if you will."

He hesitated for a moment, and then threw down his hat. He sank into an easy chair, and covered his face with his hands.

"I've been a beast, I know!" he half sobbed. "I can't help it. Isobel is everything in the world to me. You fellows can't imagine how I care for her."

I laid my hand upon his shoulder—a little wearily, perhaps, though I tried to infuse some sympathy into my tone.

"Cheer up, Arthur!" I said. "You have your chance. Don't make a trouble of it yet."

Arthur shook his head despondently.

"I think," he said, "that she will go to Waldenburg!"

---

Book III

---

CHAPTER I

Arthur flung himself into the room pale, hollow-eyed, the picture of despair.

"Any news?" he cried, hopelessly enough, for he had seen my face.

"None," I answered.

"Anything from Feurgéres?"

"Not yet."

"Tell me again—where did you telegraph him?"

"Dover, Calais, Paris, Ostend, Brussels, Cologne!"

"And no reply?"

"As yet none."

"Let us look again at the note you found."

I smoothed it out upon the table. We had read it many times.

"There is something else which I must tell you before I leave England. Come to me at once. The bearer will bring you. Come alone.

"Henri Feurgéres.

"P.S.—You will be back in an hour. Disturb no one. It is possible that I may ask you to keep secret what I have to say."

"This note," I remarked, tapping it with my forefinger, "was taken in to Isobel by Mrs. Burdett at a quarter to eight. It was brought, she said, by a respectable middle-aged woman, with whom Isobel left the place soon after eight. We heard of this an hour later. At eleven o'clock we began the search for Monsieur Feurgéres. At three, Allan discovered that he had left the Savoy Hotel at ten for St. Petersburg. Since then we have sent seven telegrams, the delivery of which is very problematical—and we have heard—nothing!"

Allan laid his hand gently upon my shoulder.

"We may get a reply from Feurgéres at any moment," he said, "but there will be no news of Isobel. That note is a forgery, Arnold."

"I am afraid it is," I admitted. "Feurgéres was a man of his word. He would never have sent for Isobel."

"Then she is lost to us," Arthur groaned.

I caught up my hat and coat.

"Not yet," I said. "I will go and see what Lady Delahaye has to say about this. It can do no harm, at any rate."

"Shall I come?" Arthur asked, half rising from his chair.

"I would rather go alone," I answered.

---

The butler, who knew me by sight, was courteous but doubtful.

"Her ladyship has been receiving all the afternoon," he told me, "but I believe that she has gone to her rooms now. Her ladyship dines early to-night because of the opera. I will send your name up if you like, sir."

I walked restlessly up and down the hall for ten minutes. Then a lady's maid suddenly appeared through a green baize door and beckoned me to follow her.

"Her ladyship will see you upstairs, sir, if you will come this way," she announced.

I followed her into a little boudoir. Lady Delahaye, in a blue dressing-gown, was lying upon a sofa. She eyed me as I entered with a curious smile.

"This is indeed an unexpected pleasure," she murmured. "Do sit down somewhere. It is long past my hour of receiving, and I am just getting ready for dinner, but I positively could not send you away. Now, please, tell me all about it."

"You know why I have come, then?" I remarked.

"My dear man, I haven't the least idea," she protested. "It is sheer unadulterated curiosity which made me send Perkins for you up here. We're not at all upon the sort of terms, you know," she added, looking up at me with her big blue eyes, "for this sort of thing."

"Isobel left us this morning!" I said bluntly. "She received a note signed Feurgéres, which I am sure was a forgery. She left us at eight o'clock, and she has not returned."

Lady Delahaye looked at me with a faint smile. Her expression puzzled me. I was not even able to guess at the thoughts which lay underneath her words.

"How anxious you must be," she murmured. "Do you know, I always wondered whether Isobel would not some day weary of your milk-and-water Bohemianism. Your Scotch friend is worthy, no doubt, but dull, and the boy was too hopelessly in love to be amusing. And as for you—well—you would do very nicely, no doubt, my dear Arnold, but you are too stuffed up with principles for a girl of Isobel's antecedents. So she has cut the Gordian knot herself! Well, I am sorry!"

"You are sorry!" I repeated. "Why?"

She smiled sweetly at me.

"Because my dear friend has promised me that wonderful emerald necklace if I could get the child away from you, and I think that very soon, with the help of that stupid boy, I should have succeeded," she said regretfully. "Such emeralds, Arnold! and you know how anything green suits me."

"You do not doubt, then, but that it is the Archduchess who has done this?" I said.

Lady Delahaye lifted her eyebrows.

"Either the Archduchess, or Isobel has walked off of her own sweet will," she remarked calmly. "In any case you have lost the child, and I have lost my necklace. I positively cannot risk losing my dinner too," she added, with a glance at the clock, "so I am afraid—I am so sorry, but I must ask you to go away. Come and see me again, won't you? Perhaps we can be friends again now that this bone of contention is removed."

"I have never desired anything else, Lady Delahaye," I said. "But if my friendship is really of any value to you, if you would care to earn my deepest gratitude, you could easily do so."

"Really! In what manner?"

"By helping me to regain possession of the child."

She laughed at me, softly at first, and then without restraint. Finally she rang the bell.

"My dear Arnold," she exclaimed, wiping her eyes, "you are really too naïve! You amuse me more than I can tell you. My maid will show you the way downstairs. Do come and see me again soon. Good-bye!"

So that was the end of any hope we may have had of help from Lady Delahaye. I called a hansom outside and drove at once to Blenheim House, the temporary residence of the Archduchess and her suite. A footman passed me on to a more important person who was sitting at a round table in the hall with a visitor's book open before him. I explained to him my desire to obtain a few moments' audience with the Archduchess, but he only smiled and shook his head.

"It is quite impossible for her Highness to see anyone now before her departure, sir," he said. "If you are connected with the Press, I can only tell you what I have told all the others. We have received a telegram from Illghera with grave news concerning the health of his Majesty the King of Waldenburg, and notwithstanding the indisposition of the Princess Adelaide, the Archduchess has arranged to leave for Illghera at once. A fuller explanation will appear in the Court Circular, and the Archduchess is particularly anxious to express her great regret to all those whom the cancellation of her engagements may inconvenience. Good-day, sir!"

The man recommenced his task, which was apparently the copying out of a list of names from the visitor's book, and signed to the footman with his penholder to show me out. But I stood my ground.

"You are leaving to-day, then?" I said.

"We are leaving to-day," the man assented, without glancing up from his task. "We are naturally very busy."

"Can I see the Baron von Leibingen?" I asked.

"It is quite impossible, sir," the man answered shortly. "He is engaged with her Highness."

"I will wait!" I declared.

"Then I must trouble you, sir, to wait outside," he said, with a little gesture of impatience. "I do not wish to seem uncivil, but my orders to-day are peremptory."

At that moment a door opened and a man came across the hall, slowly drawing on his gloves. I looked up and saw the Baron von Leibingen. He recognized me at once, and bowed courteously. At the same time there was something in his manner which gave me the impression that he was not altogether pleased to see me.

"Is there anything I can do for you, Mr. Greatson?" he asked, pausing for a moment by my side.

"I am anxious to obtain five minutes' interview with the Archduchess," I answered. "If you could manage that for me I should be exceedingly obliged."

He shook his head.

"It is quite impossible!" he said decisively. "You have heard of the serious news from Illghera, without doubt. We shall be on our way there in a few hours."

I drew him a little on one side.

"Is Isobel here, Baron?" I asked bluntly.

"I beg your pardon—is who here?" he inquired, with the air of one who is puzzled by an incomprehensible question.

"Isobel—the Princess Isobel, if you like—has been lured from our care by a forged message. We know her history now, and we are able to understand the nature of the interest which your mistress has shown in her. Therefore, when I find her missing I come to you. I want to know if she is in this house."

"If she were," the Baron remarked, "I, and everyone else who knows anything about it, would say at once that she was in her proper place. If she were, I should most earnestly advise the Archduchess to keep her here. But I regret to say that she is not. To tell you the truth, the Archduchess is so annoyed at the young lady's refusal to accept her protection, that she has lost all interest in her. I doubt whether she would receive her now if she came."

"Perhaps," I remarked slowly, "she has gone to Illghera."

"It is, of course," the Baron agreed, "not an impossibility."

"If I do not succeed in my search," I said, "it is to Illghera that I shall come."

"You will find it," the Baron assured me, with a smile, "a most charming place. I shall be delighted to renew our acquaintance there."

"His Majesty," I continued, "is, I have heard, very accessible. I shall be able to tell him Isobel's story. You may keep the child away from him, Baron, but you cannot prevent his learning the fact of her existence and her history."

"My young friend," the Baron answered, edging his way towards the door, "your enigmas at another time would be most interesting. But at present I have affairs on hand, and I am pressed for time. I will permit myself to say, however, that you are altogether deceiving yourself. It was the one wish of the Archduchess to have taken Isobel to her grandfather and begged him to recognize her."

"You decline to meet me fairly, then—to tell me the truth? Mind, I firmly believe that Isobel is now under your control. I shall not rest until I have discovered her."

"Then you may discover, my young friend," the Baron said, putting on his hat, and turning resolutely away, "the true meaning of the word weariness. You are a fool to ask me any questions at all. We are on opposite sides. If I knew where the child was you are the last person whom I should tell. Her place is anywhere—save with you!"

He bowed and turned away, whispering as he passed to a footman, who at once approached me. I allowed myself to be shown out. As a matter of fact, I had no alternative. But on the steps was an English servant in the Blenheim livery. I slipped half a sovereign into his hand.

"Can you tell me what time the Archduchess leaves, and from what station?" I asked.

"I am not quite sure about the time, sir," the man answered, "but the 'buses are ordered from Charing Cross, and they are to be here at eight to-night."

It was already past seven. I lit a cigarette and strolled on towards the station.

---

CHAPTER II

At Charing Cross station a strange thing happened. The Continental train arrived whilst I was sauntering about the platform, and out of it, within a few feet of me, stepped Feurgéres. He was pale and haggard, and he leaned heavily upon the arm of his servant as he stepped out of his carriage. When he saw me, however, he held out his hand and smiled.

"You expected me, then?" he exclaimed.

"Not I," I answered. "You have taken my breath away."

"I had your telegram at Brussels," he explained. "I wired St. Petersburg at once, and turned back. Any news?"

"None," I answered.

"What are you doing here?"

I told him in a few rapid words. He listened intently, nodding his head every now and then.

"The Archduchess has her," he said, "and if only one of us had the ghost of a legal claim upon the child our difficulties would end. She is an unscrupulous woman, but there are things which even she dare not do. What are they doing over there?"

He pointed to the next platform. I took him by the arm and dragged him along.

"It is the special!" I exclaimed. "We must see them start."

Red drugget was being stretched across the platform, and to my dismay the barricades were rolled across. The luggage was already in the van, and the guard was looking at his watch. Then a small brougham drove rapidly up and stopped opposite to the saloon. Baron von Leibingen descended, and was immediately followed by the Archduchess. Together they helped from the carriage and across the platform a dark, tall girl, at the first sight of whom my heart began to beat wildly. Then I remembered the likeness between the cousins and what I had heard of the Princess Adelaide's indisposition. She was almost carried into the saloon, and at the last moment she looked swiftly, almost fearfully, around her. I could scarcely contain myself. The likeness was marvellous! As the train steamed out of the station Feurgéres pushed aside the barricade and walked straight up to the station-master.

"I want a special," he said, "to catch the boat. I am Feurgéres, and I am due at Petersburg Wednesday."

The station-master shook his head.

"You can have a special, sir, in twenty minutes, but you cannot catch the boat. The one I have just sent off would never do it, but the boat has a Royal command to wait for her."

"Can't you give me an engine which will make up the twenty minutes?" Feurgéres asked.

"It is impossible, sir," the station-master answered. "We have not an engine built which would come within ten miles an hour of that one."

"Very good," Feurgéres said. "I will have the special, at any rate. Be so good as to give your orders at once."

"You will gain nothing if you want to get on, sir," the station-master remarked. "An ordinary train will leave here in two hours, which will catch the next boat."

"The special in twenty minutes," Feurgéres answered sharply. "Forty pounds, is it not? It is here!"

The station-master hurried away. I scarcely understood Feurgéres' haste to reach Dover. When I told him so he only laughed and led me away towards the refreshment-room. He ordered luncheon baskets to be sent out to the train, and he made me drink a brandy-and-soda. Then he took me by the arm.

"You are not much of a conspirator, my friend, Arnold Greatson," he said. "You have been within a dozen yards of Isobel within the last few minutes, and you have not recognized her."

I stopped short. That wonderful likeness flashed once more back upon my mind. Certainly in the Mordaunt Rooms it had not been so noticeable. And her eyes! I looked at Feurgéres, and he nodded.

"The Princess Adelaide either remains in England or has gone on quietly ahead," he said. "They have dressed Isobel in her clothes, and the general public could never tell the difference. You see how difficult they have made it for us to approach her. They will be hedged around like this all across the Continent. Oh, it was a very clever move!"

I scarcely answered him. My eyes were fixed upon the tangled wilderness of red and green lights, amongst which that train had disappeared. What had they done to her, these people, that she should scarcely have been able to crawl across the platform? What had they done to make her accept their bidding, and leave England without a word or message to any of us? It had not been of her own choice, I was sure enough of that.

"Come!" Feurgéres said quietly.

I followed him to the platform, where the saloon carriage and engine were already drawn up. Feurgéres brought with him his servant and all his luggage. A few curious porters and bystanders saw us start. No one, however, manifested any particular interest in us. There was no one whose business it seemed to be to watch us.

I sat back in my corner and looked out into the darkness. Feurgéres, opposite to me, was leaning back with half-closed eyes. From his soft, regular breathing it seemed almost as though he slept. For me there was no thought of rest or sleep. I made plans only to discard them, rehearsed speeches, appeals, threats, only to realize their hopeless ineffectiveness. And underneath it all was a dull constant pain, the pain which stays.

Our journey was about three-parts over when Feurgéres suddenly sat up in his seat, and opening his dressing-case, drew out a Continental timetable.

"In a sense that station-master was right," he remarked, turning over the leaves. "We shall not reach Paris any the sooner for taking this special train. On the other hand, we shall have time to ascertain in Dover whether our friends really have gone on to Calais, or whether they by any chance changed their minds and took the Ostend boat. I sincerely trust that that course will not have presented itself to them."

"Why?" I asked.

"Somewhere on the journey," he remarked, "they must pause. They will have to exchange Isobel for the Princess Adelaide, and make their plans for the disposal of Isobel. If they should do this, say, in Brussels, we shall be at a great disadvantage. If, however, they should stay in Paris, we should be in a different position altogether. The chief of the police is my friend. I am known there, and can command as good service as the Archduchess herself. We must hope that it will be Paris. If so, we shall arrive—let me see, six hours behind them; but supposing they do break their connection, we shall have still five hours in Paris with them before they can get on. If they are cautious they will go to Illghera viâ Brussels and their own country. If, however, they do not seriously regard the matter of pursuit they will go direct."

A few moments later we came to a standstill in the town station. Feurgéres let down the window, and talked for a few minutes with the station-master. Then he resumed his seat.

"We will go on to the quay," he said. "It is almost certain that our friends left by the Paris boat. We shall have four hours to wait, but we can secure our cabins, and perhaps sleep."

We moved slowly on to the quay. A few enquiries there completely assured us. Midway across the Channel, plainly visible still, was a disappearing green light.

"That's the Marie Louise, sir," a seaman told me. "Left here five and twenty minutes ago. The parties you were enquiring about boarded her right enough. The young lady had almost to be carried. She's the new turbine boat, and she ought to be across in about half an hour from now."

Monsieur Feurgéres engaged the best cabin on the steamer, and his servant fitted me up a dressing-case with necessaries for the journey from his master's ample store. Then we went into the saloon, and had some supper. Afterwards we stood upon deck watching the passengers come on board from the train which had just arrived. Suddenly I seized Feurgéres by the arm and dragged him inside the cabin.

"The Princess Adelaide!" I exclaimed. "Look!"

We saw her distinctly from the window. She was dressed very plainly, and wore a heavy veil which she had just raised. She stood within a few feet of us, talking to the maid, who seemed to be her sole companion.

"Find my cabin, Mason," she ordered. "I shall lie down directly we start. I am always ill upon these wretched night boats. It is a most unpleasant arrangement, this."

Feurgéres looked at me and smiled.

"Isobel's features," he remarked, "but not her voice. You see, we are on the right track. We must contrive to keep out of that young lady's way."

---

To keep out of the way of the Princess Adelaide was easy enough, presuming that she kept her word and remained in her cabin. I watched her enter it and close the door. Afterwards I wrapped myself in an ulster of Feurgéres' and went out on deck. It was a fine night, but windy, and a little dark. I lit a pipe and leaned over the side. I had scarcely been there two minutes when I heard a light footstep coming along the deck and pause a few feet away. A girl's voice addressed me.

"Can you tell me what that light is?"

I knew who it was at once. It was the most hideous ill-fortune. I answered gruffly, and without turning my head.

"Folkestone Harbour!"

I thought that after that she must surely go away. But she did nothing of the sort. She came and leaned over the rail by my side.

"You are Mr. Arnold Greatson, are you not?"

My heart sank, and I could have cursed my folly for leaving my cabin. However, since I was discovered there was nothing to do but to make the best of it.

"Yes, I am Arnold Greatson," I admitted.

"I wonder if you know who I am?" she asked.

"You are the Princess Adelaide of——"

She held up her hand.

"Stop, please! I see that you know. For some mysterious reason I am travelling almost alone, and under another name which I do not like at all. You are very fond of my cousin, Isobel, are you not, Mr. Greatson?"

I tried to see her face, but it was half turned away from me. Her voice, however, reminded me a little of Isobel's.

"Yes," I admitted slowly. "You see, she was under our care for some time, and we all grew very fond of her."

"But you—you especially, I mean," she went on. "Do not be afraid of me, Mr. Greatson. I know that my mother is very angry with you, and has tried to take Isobel away, but if I were she I would not come. I think that she must be very much happier as she is."

"I—I am too old," I said slowly, "to dare to be fond of anyone—in that way."

"How foolish!" she murmured. "Do you know, Mr. Greatson, that I am only eighteen, and that I am betrothed to the King of Saxonia. He is over forty, very short, and he has horrid turned-up black moustaches. He is willing to marry me because I am to have a great fortune, and my mother is willing for me to marry him because I shall be a Queen. But that is not happiness, is it?"

"I am afraid not," I answered.

"Mr. Greatson," she continued, "I feel that I can talk to you like this because I have read your books. I like the heroes so much, and of course I like the stories too. I think that Isobel is very wise not to want to come back to Waldenburg. I wish that I were free as she is, and had not to do things because I am a Princess. And I am sure that she is very fond of you."

"Princess——" I began.

She stopped me.

"If you knew how I hated that word!" she murmured. "I may never see you again, you know, after this evening, so it really does not matter—but would you mind calling me Adelaide?"

"Adelaide, then," I said, "may I ask you a question?"

"As many as you like."

"Do you know where Isobel is now?"

Her surprise was obviously genuine.

"Why, of course not! Is she not at your house in London?"

I shook my head.

"She is a few hours in front of us on her way to Paris," I said, "with your mother and the Baron von Leibingen and the rest of your people. She is travelling in your clothes and in your name. That is why you were left to follow as quietly as possible."

She laid her hand upon my arm. Her eyes were full of tears, and her voice shook.

"Oh, I am so sorry," she cried softly, "so very sorry. Why cannot my mother leave her alone with you? I am sure she would be happier."

"I think so too," I answered. "That is why I am going to try and fetch her back."

She looked at me very anxiously.

"Mr. Greatson," she said, "you do not know my mother. If she makes up her mind to anything she is terribly hard to change. I do hope that you succeed, though. Why ever did Isobel leave you?"

"She received a forged letter, written in somebody else's name," I said. "How your mother has induced her to stay since, though, I do not know. She looked very ill at Charing Cross, and she had to be helped into the train."

The Princess Adelaide went very white.

"It was she I heard this morning—cry out," she murmured. "They told me it was one of the servants who had had an accident. Mr. Greatson, this is terrible!"

She turned her head away, and I could see that she was crying.

"You must not distress yourself," I said kindly. "I daresay that it will all come right. You will see Isobel, I think, in Paris. If you do, will you give her a message?"

"Of course, I will," she answered.

"Tell her that we are close at hand, and that we have powerful friends," I whispered. "We shall get to see her somehow or other, and if she chooses to return she shall!"

"Yes. Anything else?"

"I think not," I answered.

"Do you not want to send her your love?" she asked, with a faint smile.

"Of course," I said slowly.

She leaned a little over towards me.

"Mr. Greatson," she said, "do you know what I should want you to do if I were Isobel—what I am quite sure that she must want you to do now?"

"Tell me!"

"Why, marry her! She would be quite safe then, wouldn't she?"

I tried to smile in a non-committal sort of way, but I am afraid there were things in my face beyond my power to control.

"You forget," I answered. "I am thirty-four, and Isobel is only eighteen. Besides, there is someone else who wants to marry Isobel. He is young, and they have been great friends always. I think that she is fond of him."

She shook her head doubtfully.

"I do not think that thirty-four is old at all, and if you care for Isobel, I would not let anyone else marry her," she declared. "Is that Calais?"

"Yes."

"I think that I will go now in case my maid should see us together," she said. "Oh, I can tell you where we are going in Paris. Will that help you?"

"Of course it will," I answered.

"Number 17, Rue Henriette," she whispered. "Please come a little further this way a moment."

I obeyed her at once. We were quite out of sight now, in the quietest corner of the ship.

"Mr. Greatson," she said, "you will think that I am a very strange girl. I am going to be married in a few months to a man I do not care for one little bit, and it seems to me that that will be the end of my life. I want you to marry Isobel, and I hope you will both be very happy—and—will you please kiss me once? I am Isobel's cousin, you know."

I leaned forward and touched her lips. Then I grasped her hands warmly.

"You are very, very kind," I said gratefully, "and you can't think how much happier you have made me feel. If only—you were not a Princess!"

She flitted away into the darkness with a little broken laugh. She passed me half an hour later in the Customs' house with a languid impassive stare which even her mother could not have excelled.

---

CHAPTER III

Feurgéres looked at me in surprise.

"What have you been doing to yourself?" he exclaimed. "Is the fresh air so wonderful a tonic, or have you been asleep and dreaming of Paradise?"

I laughed.

"The sea air was well enough," I answered, "but I have been having a most interesting conversation."

"With whom?" he asked.

"The Princess Adelaide!"

He drew a little closer to me.

"You are serious?"

"Undoubtedly. Listen!"

Then I told him of my conversation with Isobel's cousin, excepting the last episode. His gratification was scarcely equal to mine. He was a little thoughtful for some time afterwards. I am sure he felt that I had been indiscreet.

"The Princess Adelaide," I said, "will not betray us. I am sure of that. She will tell her mother nothing."

"These Waldenburgs," he answered gravely, "are a crafty race. It is in their blood. They cannot help it."

"Isobel is a Waldenburg," I reminded him.

"She is her mother's daughter," he said. "There is always one alien temperament in a family."

"In this case," I declared, "two!"

He shrugged his shoulders.

"We shall soon know," he said, "whether this young lady is honest or not. A man will meet us at Paris with an exact record of the doings of the Archduchess and her party. We shall know then where Isobel is. If the address is the same as that given you by the Princess Adelaide, I will believe in her."

"But not till then?" I remarked, smiling.

"Not till then!" he assented.

Before we left Calais, Feurgéres sent more telegrams, and for an hour afterwards he sat opposite to me with wide-open eyes, seeing nothing, as was very evident, save the images created by his own thoughts. As we reached Amiens, however, he spoke to me.

"You had better try and get some sleep," he said. "You may have little time for rest in Paris."

"And you?" I asked.

"It is another matter," he answered. "I am accustomed to sleeping very little; and besides, it is probable that this affair may become one which it will be necessary for you to follow up alone. The sight of me, or the mention of my name, is like poison to all the Waldenburgs. They would only be the more bitter and hard to deal with if they knew that I, too, had joined in the chase. I hope to be able to do my share secretly."

I followed his suggestion, and slept more or less fitfully all the way to Paris. I was awakened to find that the train had come to a standstill. We were already in the station, and as I hastily collected my belongings I saw that Feurgéres had left me, and was standing on the platform talking earnestly to a pale, dark young Frenchman, sombrely dressed and of insignificant appearance. I joined him just as his companion departed. He turned towards me with a peculiar smile.

"My apologies to the Princess," he said. "The address is correct. They have gone to a suite of rooms belonging to the Baron von Leibingen."

"They are there still, then?" I exclaimed.

"They are there still," Feurgéres assented, "and they show no immediate signs of moving on. They are apparently waiting for someone—perhaps for the Princess Adelaide. Inside the house and out they are being closely watched, and directly their plans are made I shall know of them."

I looked, as I felt, a little surprised. Feurgéres smiled.

"I am at home here," he said, "and I have friends. Come! My own apartments are scarcely a stone's-throw away from the Rue Henriette. Estere will see our things safely through the Customs."

We drove through the cold grey twilight to the Rue de St. Antoine, where Feurgéres' apartments were. To my surprise servants were at hand expecting us, and I was shown at once into a suite of rooms, in one of which was a great marble bath all ready for use. Some coffee and a change of clothes were brought me. All my wants seemed to have been anticipated and provided for. I had always imagined Feurgéres to be a man of very simple and homely tastes, but there were no traces of it in his home. He showed me some of the rooms while we waited for breakfast, rooms handsomely furnished and decorated, full of art treasures and curios of many sorts collected from many countries.

But, in a sense, it was like a dead house. One felt that it might be a dwelling of ghosts. There were nowhere any signs of the rooms being used, the habitable air was absent. Everything was in perfect order. There was no dust, none of the chilliness of disuse. Yet one seemed to feel everywhere the sadness of places which exist only for their history. One door only remained closed, and that Feurgéres unlocked with a little key which hung from his chain. But he did not invite me to enter.

"You will excuse me for a few moments," he said. "My housekeeper will show you into the breakfast-room. Please do not wait for me."

An old lady, very primly dressed in black, and wearing a curious cap with long white strings, bustled me away. As Feurgéres opened the door of the room, in front of which we had been standing, the air seemed instantly sweet with the perfume of flowers. The old lady sighed as she poured me out some coffee. I am ashamed to say that I felt, and doubtless I looked, curious.

"Would it not be as well for me to wait for Monsieur Feurgéres?" I asked. "He will not be very long, I suppose?"

The old lady shook her head sadly.

"Ah! but one cannot say!" she answered. "Monsieur had better begin his breakfast."

"Your master has perhaps someone waiting to see him?" I remarked.

Madame Tobain—she told me her name—shook her head once more. She spoke softly, almost as though she were speaking of something sacred.

"Monsieur did not know, perhaps—it was the chamber of Madame. Always Monsieur spends several hours a day there when he is in Paris, and always after he has performed at the theatre he returns immediately to sit there. No one else is allowed to enter; only I, when Monsieur is away, am permitted once a day to fill it with fresh flowers—flowers always the most expensive and rare. Ah, such devotion, and for the dead, too! One finds it seldom, indeed! It is the great artists only who can feel like that!"

She wiped her eyes with the corner of her apron, dropped me a curtsey, and withdrew. Feurgéres came in presently, and I avoided looking at him for the first few minutes. To tell the truth, there was a lump in my own throat. When he spoke, however, his tone was as usual.

"I shall ask you," he said, "to stay indoors, but to be prepared to start away at a moment's notice. I am going to make a few enquiries myself."

His voice drew my eyes to his face, and I was astonished at his appearance. The skin seemed tightly drawn about his cheeks, and he was very white. As though in contradiction to his ill-looks, however, his eyes were unusually brilliant and clear, and his manner almost buoyant.

"Forgive me, Monsieur Feurgéres," I said, "but it seems to me that you had better rest for a while. You have been travelling longer than I have, and you are tired."

He smiled at me almost gaily.

"On the contrary," he declared, "I never felt more vigorous. I——"

He stopped short, and walked the length of the room. When he returned he was very grave, but the smile was still upon his lips. He laid his hand almost affectionately upon my shoulder.

"My dear friend," he said softly, "I think that you are the only one to whom I have felt it possible to speak of the things which lie so near my heart. For I think that you, too, are one of those who know, and who must know, what it is to suffer. We who carry the iron in our hearts, you know, are sometimes drawn together. The things which we may hide from the world we cannot hide from one another. Only for you there is hope, for me there has been the wonderful past. People have pitied me often, my friend, for what they have called my lonely life. They little know! I am not a sentimentalist. I speak of real things. Isobel, my wife, died to the world and was buried. To me she lives always. Just now—I have been with her. She sat in her old chair, and her eyes smiled again their marvellous welcome to me. Only—and this is why I speak to you of these things—there was a difference."

He was silent for a few minutes. When he continued, his voice was a little softer but no less firm.

"Dear friend," he said, "I will be honest. When Isobel was taken from me I had days and hours of hideous agony. But it was the craving for her body only, the touch of her lips, the caress of her hands, the sound of her voice. Her spirit has been with me always. At first, perhaps, her coming was faint and indefinable, but with every day I realized her more fully. I called her, and she sat in her box and watched me play, and kissed her roses to me. I close the door upon the world and call her back to her room, call her into my arms, whisper the old words, call her those names which she loves best—and she is there, and all my burden of sorrow falls away. My friend, a great love can do this! A great, pure love can mock even at the grave."

I clasped his hand in mine.

"I think," I said, "that I will never pity you again. You have triumphed even over Fate—even over those terrible, relentless laws which sometimes make a ghastly nightmare of life even to the happiest of us. You have turned sorrow into joy. It is a great deed. You have made my own suffering seem almost a vulgar thing."

"Ah, no!" he said, "for you, too, there is hope. You, too, know that we need never be the idle, resistless slaves of Fate—like those others. Will and faith and purity can kindle a magic flame to lighten the darkness of the greatest sorrow. I speak to you of these things—now—because I think that the end is near."

He suddenly sank into a chair. I looked at him in alarm, but his face was radiant. There was no sign of any illness there.

"You are young, Arnold Greatson," he said. "They tell me that you will be famous. Yet you are not one of those to turn your face to the wall because the greatest gift of life is withheld from you. That is why I have lifted the curtain of my own days. I know you, and I know that you will triumph. It is a world of compensations after all for those who have the wit to understand."

I think that he had more to say to me, but we were interrupted. There was a knock at the door, and the man entered whom I had seen talking with Feurgéres upon the platform of the railway station. Feurgéres rose at once, calm and prepared. They talked for a while so rapidly that I could not follow them. Then he turned to me.

"They are preparing for a move," he announced. "They are going south as though for Marseilles and Illghera, but they insist upon a special train. They have declined a saloon attached to the train de luxe, and Monsieur Estere here has doubts as to their real destination. Wait here until I return. Be prepared for a journey."

---

They left me alone. I lit a cigarette and settled down to read. In less than half an hour, however, I was disturbed. There was a knock at the door, and Madame Tobain entered.

"There is a lady here, sir, who desires to see Monsieur!" she announced.

A fair, slight woman in a long travelling cloak brushed past her. She raised her veil, and I started at once to my feet. It was Lady Delahaye.

---

CHAPTER IV

It did not need a word from Lady Delahaye to acquaint me fully with what had happened. Indeed, my only wonder had been that this knowledge had not come to her before. She greeted me with a smile, but her face was full of purpose.

"Where is he?" she asked simply.

"Not here," I answered.

She seated herself, and began to unpin the travelling veil from her hat.

"So I perceive," she remarked. "He will return?"

"Yes," I admitted, "he will return."

She folded the veil upon her knee and looked across at me thoughtfully.

"What an idiot I have been!" she murmured. "After all, that emerald necklace might easily have been mine."

"I am not so sure about that," I answered. "I think I know what is in your mind, but I might remind you that suspicion is one thing and proof another."

"The motive," she answered, "is the difficult thing, and that is found. I suppose the police are good for something. They should be able to work backwards from a certainty."

"Are you," I asked, "going to employ the police? Don't you think that, for the good of everyone, and even for your husband's own sake, the thing had better remain where it is?"

She laughed scornfully.

"You would have me let the man go free who shot another in the back treacherously and without warning?" she exclaimed. "Thank you for your advice, Arnold Greatson. I have a different purpose in my mind."

I moved my chair and drew a little nearer to her.

"Lady Delahaye—" I began.

"The use of my Christian name," she murmured, "would perhaps make your persuasions more effective. At any rate, you might try. I have never forbidden you to use it."

"If you have any regard for me at all, then, Eileen," I said, "you will think seriously before you take any steps against Monsieur Feurgéres. Remember that he had, or thought he had, very strong reasons for acting as he did. Looking at it charitably, your husband's proceedings were open to very grave misconstruction. There will be a great deal of unpleasant scandal if the story is raked up again, and Isobel's whole history will be told in court. How will that suit the Archduchess?"

"Not at all," Lady Delahaye admitted frankly; "but the Archduchess is not the only person to be considered. You seem to forget that this is no trifling matter. It is a murderer whom you are shielding, the man who killed my husband whom you would have me let go free."

"Technically," I admitted, "not actually. Your husband did not die of his wound. He was in a very bad state of health."

"I cannot recognize the distinction," Lady Delahaye declared coldly. "He died from shock following it."

"Consider for a moment the position of Monsieur Feurgéres," I pleaded. "Isobel was the only child of the woman whom he had dearly loved. The care of her was a charge upon his conscience and upon his honour. Any open association with him he felt might be to her detriment later on in life. All that he could do was to watch over her from a distance. He saw her, as he imagined, in danger. What course was open to him? Forget for the moment that Major Delahaye was your husband. Put yourself in the place of Feurgéres. What could he do but strike?"

"He broke the law," she said coldly, "the law of men and of God. He must take the consequences. I am not a vindictive woman. I would have forgiven him for making a scene, for striking my husband, or taking away the child by force. But he went too far."

"Have you," I asked, "been to the police?"

"Not yet."

I caught at this faint hope.

"You came here to see him first? You have something to propose—some compromise?"

She shook her head slowly.

"Between Monsieur Feurgéres and myself," she said, "there can be no question of anything of the sort. There is nothing which he could offer me, nothing within his power to offer, which could influence me in the slightest."

"Then why," I asked, "are you here?"

"To see you," she answered. "I want to ask you this, Arnold. You wish Monsieur Feurgéres to go free. You wish to stay my hand. What price are you willing to pay?"

I looked at her blankly. As yet her meaning was hidden from me.

"Any price!" I declared.

Then she leaned over towards me.

"What is he to you, Arnold—this man?" she asked softly. "You are wonderfully loyal to some of your friends."

"I know the story of his life," I answered, "and it is enough. Besides, he is an old man, and I fancy that his health is failing. Let him end his days in peace. You will never regret it, Eileen. If my gratitude is worth anything to you——"

"I want," she interrupted, "more than your gratitude."

We sat looking at each other for a moment in a silence which I for my part could not have broken. I read in her face, in her altered expression, and the softened gleam of her eyes, all that I was expected to read. I said nothing.

"It is not so very many years, Arnold," she went on, "since you cared for me, or said that you did. I have not changed so much, have I? Give up this senseless pursuit of a child. Oh, you guard your secret very bravely, but you cannot hide the truth from me. It is not all philanthropy which has made you such a squire of dames. You believe that you care for her—that child! Arnold, it is a foolish fancy. You belong to different hemispheres; you are twice her age. It will be years before she can even realize what life and love may be. Give it all up. She is in safe hands now. Come back to London with me, and Monsieur Feurgéres shall go free."

"Monsieur Feurgéres, Madame, thanks you!"

He had entered the room softly, and stood at the end of the screen. Lady Delahaye's face darkened.

"May I ask, sir, how long you have been playing the eavesdropper?" she demanded.

"Not so long, Madame, as I should have desired," he answered, "yet long enough to understand this. My young friend here seems to be trying to bargain with you for my safety. Madame, I cannot allow it. If your silence is indeed to be bought, the terms must be arranged between you and me."

She looked at him a trifle insolently.

"I have already explained to Mr. Greatson," she remarked, "that bargaining between you and me is impossible because you have nothing to offer which could tempt me."

"And Mr. Greatson has?"

"That, Monsieur," she answered, "is between Mr. Greatson and myself."

Monsieur Feurgéres stood his ground.

"Lady Delahaye," he said, "I want you to listen to me for a moment. It is not a justification which I am attempting. It is just a word or two of explanation, to which I trust you will not refuse to listen."

"If you think it worth while," she answered coldly.

He shrugged his shoulders.

"Who can tell! I have the fancy, however, to assure you that what took place that day at the Café Grand was not the impulsive act of a man inspired with a homicidal mania, but was the necessary outcome of a long sequence of events. You know the peculiar relations existing between Isobel and myself. I had not the right to approach her, or to assume any overt act of guardianship. Any association with me would at once have imperilled any chance she may have possessed of being restored to her rightful position at Waldenburg. I accordingly could only watch over her by means of spies. This I have always done."

"With what object, Monsieur Feurgéres?" Lady Delahaye asked. "You could never have interfered."

"The care of Isobel—the distant care of her—was a charge laid upon me by her mother," Feurgéres answered. "It was therefore sacred. I trusted to Fate to find those who might intervene where I dared not, and Fate sent me at a very critical moment Mr. Arnold Greatson. Lady Delahaye, to speak ill of a woman is no pleasant task—to speak ill of the dead is more painful still. Yet these are facts. The Archduchess was willing to go to any lengths to prevent Isobel's creditable and honourable appearance in Waldenburg. It was the Archduchess who, after what she has termed her sister's disgrace, sent Isobel secretly to the convent, and your husband, Lady Delahaye, who took her there. It was your husband who brought her away, and it was the announcement of his visit to the convent, and an ill-advised confidence to a friend at his club in Paris, which brought me home from America. I will only say that I had reason to suspect Major Delahaye as the guardian of Isobel—even the Archduchess was ignorant of the position which he had assumed. Since I became a player there are many who forget that my family is noble. Major Delahaye was one of these. He returned a letter which I wrote to him with a contemptuous remark only. My friend the Duc d'Autrien saw him on my behalf. From him your husband received a second and a very plain warning. He disregarded it. Once more I wrote. I warned him that if he took Isobel from the convent he went to his death. That is all!"

There was a silence. Lady Delahaye was very pale. She looked imploringly at me.

"Monsieur Feurgéres," she said, "I am not your judge. I do not wish to seem vindictive. Will you leave me with Mr. Greatson for a few minutes?"

"Madame, I cannot," he answered gravely. "Apart from the fact that I decline to have my safety purchased for me, especially by one to whom I already owe too much, it is necessary that Mr. Greatson leaves this house within the next quarter of an hour."

I sprang to my feet. I forgot Lady Delahaye. I forgot that this man's life and freedom rested at her disposal. The great selfishness was upon me.

"I am ready!" I exclaimed.

Lady Delahaye looked, and she understood. Slowly she rose to her feet and crossed the room towards the door. I was tongue-tied. I made no protest—asked no questions. Feurgéres opened the door for her and summoned his servant, but no word of any sort passed between them. Then he turned suddenly to me. His tone was changed. He was quick and alert.

"Arnold," he said, "the rest is with you. They are taking her to the convent. Madame Richard is here, and the Cardinal de Vaux. They have a plot—but never mind that. If she passes the threshold of the convent she is lost. It is for you to prevent it."

"I am ready!" I cried.

He opened a desk and tossed me a small revolver.

"Estere waits below in the carriage. He will drive with you to the station. You take the ordinary express to Marcon. There an automobile waits for you, and you must start for the convent. The driver has the route. Remember this. You must go alone. You must overtake them. Use force if necessary. If you fail—Isobel is lost!"

"I shall not fail!" I answered grimly.

"Bring her back, Arnold," he said, with a sudden change in his tone. "I want to see her once more."

I left him there, and glancing upwards from the street as the carriage drove off, I waved my hand to the slim black figure at the window, whose wan, weary eyes watched our departure with an expression which at the time I could not fathom. It was not until I was actually in the train that I remembered what Lady Delahaye's silent departure might mean for him.

---

CHAPTER V

Our plans were skilfully enough laid, but the Archduchess also had missed nothing. We rushed through the village of Argueil without having seen any sign of the carriage, and it was not until we had reached the vineyard-bordered road beyond that we saw it at last climbing the last hill to the convent.

"Shall we catch it?" I gasped.

The chauffeur only smiled.

"Monsieur may rest assured," he answered, changing into his fourth speed, notwithstanding the slight ascent.

Half-way up the hill we were barely one hundred yards behind. The man glanced at me for instructions.

"Blow your horn," I said.

He obeyed. The carriage drew to the side of the road. We rushed by, and I caught a glimpse of three faces. My spirits rose. There was only the Baron to deal with. Madame Richard and Isobel were the other occupants of the carriage.

"Stop, and draw the car across the road!" I ordered.

The man obeyed. I sprang to the ground. The Baron had his head out of the window, and the driver was flogging his horses.

"If you do not stop," I called out, "I shall shoot your horses."

The driver took no notice. He had flogged his horses into a gallop, and was coming straight at me. I fired, and one of the horses, after a wild plunge came down, dragging the other with him, and breaking the pole. The driver was thrown on to the top of them and rolled off into the hedge, cursing volubly. The Baron leaned out of the window, and he had something in his hand which gleamed like silver in the sunlight.

"I have had enough of you, my young friend," he said fiercely, and instantly fired.

An unseen hand struck his arm as he pulled the trigger. I felt my hat quiver upon my head as I sprung forward. The Baron had no time to fire again. I caught him by the throat and dragged him into the road.

"I have had more than enough of you, you blackguard," I muttered, and I shook him till he groaned, and threw him across the road.

Isobel stretched out her arms to me—Isobel herself, but how pale and changed!

"Arnold, Arnold, take me away!" she moaned.

I would have lifted her out, but Madame Richard had seized her.

"The child is vowed," she said. "You shall not touch her. She belongs to God."

"Then give her to me," I cried, "for I swear she is nearer to Heaven in my arms than yours."

The woman's black eyes flashed terrible things at me, and she wound herself round Isobel with a marvellous strength. For a moment I was helpless.

"Madame," I said, "I have never yet raised my hand against a woman, but if you do not release that girl this moment I shall have to forget your sex."

"Never!" she shrieked. "Help! Baron! Cocher!"

Some blue-bloused men looked up from their work in the vineyards a long way off. It was no time for hesitation. I set my teeth, and I caught hold of the woman's arms. Her bones cracked in my hands before she let go. Isobel at last was free!

"Jump up and get in the automobile, Isobel!" I said. "Bear up, dear! It is only for a moment now."

Half fainting she staggered out and groped her way across the road. Once she nearly fell, but my chauffeur leaped down and caught her. Then Madame Richard looked in my eyes and cursed me with slow, solemn words.

I sprang away from her. She followed. I jumped into the automobile. She stood in front of it and dared us to start. The driver backed a little, suddenly shot forward, and with a wonderful curve avoided her. She ran to meet the peasants who were streaming now across the fields. We could hear for a few minutes her shrill cries to them. Then the vineyards became patchwork, and the still air a rushing wind. Our chauffeur sat grim and motionless, like a figure of fate, and we did our forty miles an hour.

"You have orders?" I asked him once.

"But yes, Monsieur," he answered. "We go to Paris—and avoid the telegraph offices."

All the while Isobel was only partially conscious. Gradually, however, her colour became more natural, and at last she opened her eyes and smiled at me. Her fingers faintly pressed mine. She said nothing then, but in about half an hour she made an effort to sit up.

"Dear Arnold," she murmured, "you are indeed my guardian. Oh——"

She broke off, and shuddered violently.

"Please don't try to talk yet," I said. "I shouldn't have been much of a guardian, should I, if I hadn't fetched you out of this scrape? Besides, it was Monsieur Feurgéres who planned everything."

"Arnold," she murmured, "I—haven't eaten anything for some time. They put things in my food to make me drowsy, so I dared not."

Under my breath I made large demands upon my stock of profanity. Then I leaned over and spoke to the chauffeur. We were passing through a small town, and he at once slackened pace and pulled up at a small restaurant. With the first mouthful of soup Isobel's youth and strength seemed to reassert themselves. After a cutlet and a glass of wine she had colour, and began to talk. She even grumbled when I denied her coffee, and hurried her off again. In the automobile she came close to my side, and with a shyness quite new to her linked her arm in mine. So we sped once more on our way to Paris.

Conversation, had Isobel been fit for it, was scarcely possible. But in a disjointed sort of way she tried to tell me things.

"I was inside the house," she said, "and the door of the room was locked before I knew that Monsieur Feurgéres was not there—that the letter was not a true one. My aunt came and talked to me. She tried to be kind at first. Afterwards she was very angry. She said that my grandfather was an old man, that he wished to see me before he died. I must go with her at once. I said that I would go if I might see you first, but that only made her more angry still. She said that my life had been a disgrace to our family, that I must not mention your name, that I must speak as though I had just left the convent. Then I, too, lost my temper. I said that I would not go to Illghera. I did not want to see my grandfather, or any of my relations. They had left me alone so many years that now I could do without them altogether. She never interrupted me. She looked at me all the time with a still, cold smile. When I had finished she said only, 'We shall see,' and she left me alone. They brought me food, and after I had taken some of it I was ill. After that everything seemed like a dream. I simply moved about as they told me, and I did not seem to care much what happened. Then in Paris Adelaide came into my room. She brought me some chocolate, and she told me that you were near. I think that I should have died but for her. I began to listen to what they said. I found out that they never meant to take me to Illghera. It was the convent all the time. Adelaide brought me more chocolate, and kissed me. Then I made up my mind to fight. I would not take their food. I told myself all the time that I was not ill—I would not be ill. That is why I was able to look out for you, to strike at the Baron when he tried to shoot you, and to walk by myself. Arnold, why does my aunt hate me so?"

I did not answer her, for even as she talked her voice grew fainter and fainter, and in a moment or two she was in a dead sleep. Her head fell upon my shoulder, her hand rested in mine. So she remained until we reached the outskirts of Paris. Then the noise of passing vehicles, and the altered motion of the car over the large cobble-stones woke her. She pressed my arm.

"I am safe, Arnold?" she murmured, with a shade of anxiety still in her tone.

"Quite," I assured her.

In a few moments we turned into the Rue de St. Antoine and drew up before Monsieur Feurgéres' house. In the hall we met Tobain. I could see that she had been weeping, and her tone, as she took me a little on one side, was full of anxiety.

"Monsieur," she murmured, "I am afraid——"

I stopped her.

"The young lady first," I said. "She has been ill. Where shall I take her?"

She threw open the door of the dining-room. A small round table, elegantly appointed, was spread with such a supper as Feurgéres knew well how to order. There was a gold foiled bottle, flowers, salads and fruits. Tobain nodded vigorously as she drew up a chair for Isobel.

"It was Monsieur himself who ordered everything," she exclaimed. "He was so particular that everything should be of the best, and the wine he fetched himself."

"Where is Monsieur Feurgéres?" I asked, struck by some note of hidden feeling in her tone.

"I will take you to him," she answered, "if Mademoiselle will wait here."

In the hall she no longer concealed her fears.

"Monsieur," she said, "I am afraid. Soon after you had left, and the master had given his orders for the supper, he called me to him. He was standing before the door of Madame's chamber, the room which it is not permitted to enter, and his hands and arms were full of flowers. He had been to the florists himself, I knew, for there were more than usual. 'Tobain,' he said, 'always, as you know, I lock the door of this room when I enter. To-day I shall not do so. But you must understand that no one is permitted to enter but my friend, Mr. Arnold Greatson, who will return this evening. Those are my orders, Tobain.' 'But, Monsieur, dejeuner?' 'Remember, Tobain—Mr. Arnold Greatson only.' Then I caught a glimpse of his face, Monsieur, and I was afraid. I have been afraid ever since. It was the face of a young man, so brilliant, so eager. I was at my master's marriage, and the look was there then. He went in and he closed the door, and since then, Monsieur, I have heard no sound, and many hours have passed. Monsieur will please enter quickly."

For myself, I shared, too, Tobain's nameless apprehensions. I left her, and knocked softly at the door. There was no answer. So I entered.

The room was in darkness, but the opening of the door touched a spring under the carpet, and several heavily-shaded electric lamps filled the apartment with a soft dim light. Monsieur Feurgéres was sitting opposite to me, his eyes closed, a faint smile upon his lips. He had the air of a man who slept with a good conscience, and whose dreams were of the pleasantest. Close drawn to his was another chair, against which he leaned somewhat, and over the arm of which one hand was stretched, resting gently upon the soft mass of deep pink roses, whose perfume made fragrant the whole room. I spoke to him.

"Monsieur Feurgéres," I cried, "it is done. I have brought Isobel. She is here."

There was no answer. Had I, indeed, expected any, I could almost have believed that the smile, so light and delicate a thing, which quivered upon his pale lips, deepened a little as I spoke. But that, of course, was fancy, for Monsieur Feurgéres had won his heart's desire. Softly, and with fingers which felt almost sacrilegious, I broke off one of the blossoms with which the empty chair was laden, and with it in my hands I went back to Isobel.

---

CHAPTER VI

Isobel knew the whole truth. I told her one evening—the only one on which we two had dined out together alone. I think that the weather had tempted me to this indulgence, which I had up to now so carefully avoided. An early summer, with its long still evenings, had driven us out of doors. The leaves which rustled over our heads, stirred by the faintest of evening breezes, made sweeter music for us than the violins of the more fashionable restaurants, and no carved ceiling could be so beautiful as the star-strewn sky above. I omitted nothing. I laid the whole situation before her. When I had finished, she was very white and very quiet.

"And now that you have told me all this," she asked, after a long silence, "does it remain for me to make my choice? Even now I do not see my way at all clearly. My relations do not want me. Monsieur Feurgéres has left me some money. Cannot I choose for myself how I shall spend my life?"

"I am afraid," I answered, "that you may not. For my part I am bound to say, Isobel, that I think Monsieur Feurgéres was right. The letter of which I have told you, and which I found in my room, was written only a few hours before his death. At such a time a man sees clearly. You are not only yourself the Princess Isobel of Waldenburg, but you have a grandfather who has never recovered the loss of your mother and of you. It was not his fault or by his wish that you were sent away from Waldenburg. He has been deceived all the time by your aunt the Archduchess. I think that it is your duty to go to him."

"You will come with me?" she murmured anxiously.

"I shall not leave you," I answered slowly, "until you are in his charge. But afterwards——"

"Well?" she interrupted anxiously.

"Afterwards," I said, firmly keeping my eyes away from her and bracing myself for the effort, "our ways must lie apart, Isobel. You are the daughter of one of Europe's great families, you have a future which is almost a destiny. You must fulfil your obligations."

I saw the look in her face, and my heart ached for her. I leaned forward in my chair.

"Dear child," I said, "remember that this is what your mother would have wished. Monsieur Feurgéres believed this before he died, and I think that no one else could tell so well what she would have desired for you. Just now it may seem a little hard to go amongst strangers, to begin life all over again at your age. But, after all, we must believe that it is the right thing."

Her face was turned away from me, but I could see that her cheeks were pale and her lips trembling. She said nothing, I fancied because she dared not trust her voice. Above the tops of the trees the yellow moon was slowly rising; from a few yards away came all the varied clatter of the Boulevard. And around us little groups and couples of people were gay—gay with the invincible, imperishable gaiety of the Frenchman who dines. The white-aproned waiters smiled as with deft hands they served a different course, or with a few wonderful touches removed all traces of the repast, and served coffee and liqueurs upon a spotless cloth. And amidst it all I watched with aching heart Isobel, the child of to-day, the woman of to-morrow, as she fought her battle.

Her face seemed marble-white in the strange light, half natural, half artificial. When she spoke at last she still kept her face turned away from me.

"The right thing!" she murmured. "That is what I want to do. I want to do what she would have wished. But just now it seems a little hard. I do not want to be a princess. I do not want to be rich. Monsieur Feurgéres has made me independent, and that is all I desire. I would like to be free to live always my own life—free like you and Allan, who paint and write and think, for I, too, would love so much to be an artist. But it seems that all these things have been decided for me—by you and Monsieur Feurgéres. No," she added quickly, "I know very well that you are right. I am willing to do what Monsieur Feurgéres thinks that my mother would have wished. I will go to my grandfather, and if he wishes it I will stay with him. But there will be a condition!"

She turned at last and looked at me. The lines of her mouth had altered, the carriage of her head, a subtle change in her tone, told their own story. It was the Princess Isobel who spoke.

"I will not have my mother ignored or spoken of as one who forgot her rank and station. These are all very well, but they are trifles compared with the great things of life. I am proud of my mother's courage, I am proud of the love which made his life, after she had gone, so beautiful. I know that you understand me, Arnold, but I do not think that those others will. They must bear with me, or I shall not stay."

I looked at her wonderingly. It seemed to me so strange that, under our very eyes, the child whom I had led by the hand through Covent Garden on that bright Spring morning should have developed in thought and mind under our own roof, and with so little conscious instruction, into a woman of perceptions and character. Somewhere the seed of these things must have lain hidden. One knows so little, after all, of those whom one knows best.

"It is a fair condition, Isobel," I said. "You are going into a world which is hedged about with conventions and prejudices. The things which are so clear to you and to me, they may look at differently. You must be received as your mother's daughter, and not as the King's granddaughter."

She nodded gravely. Then she leaned across the table and looked into my eyes. Notwithstanding her pallor and her black dress, I was forced to realize what I ever forbade my thoughts to dwell upon—her great and increasing beauty. She looked into my eyes, and my heart stood still.

"Arnold," she murmured, "shall you miss me?"

My heel dug into the turf beneath my foot. My eyes fell from hers. I dared not look at her.

"We shall all miss you so much," I said gravely, "that life will never be the same again to us. You made it beautiful for a little time, and your absence will be hard to bear. I suppose we shall all turn to hard work," I added, with an attempt at lightness. "Allan will paint his great picture, Arthur will invent a new motor and make his fortune, and I shall write my immortal story."

"The story," she said, "which you would not show me?"

Show her! How could I, when I knew that for one who read between the lines the story of my own suffering was there? My secret had been hard enough to keep faithfully, even from her to whom the truth, had she ever divined it, must have seemed so incredible.

"That one, perhaps," I answered lightly, "or the next! Who can tell? One is never a judge of one's own work, you know."

"Why would you not show me that story, Arnold?" she asked softly.

I met her eyes fixed upon me with a peculiar intentness. I tried to escape them, but I could not. It was impossible for me to lie to her. My voice shook as I answered her.

"Don't ask me, Isobel!" I said. "We all make mistakes sometime, you know. Not to show you that story when you asked me was one of mine."

"If you had it here——?"

"If I had it here I would show it you," I declared.

She sighed. She did not seem altogether satisfied.

"Sometimes, Arnold," she said thoughtfully, "you puzzle me very much. You treat me always as though I were a child; you keep me at arm's length always, as though there were between us some impassable barrier, as though it could never be possible for you to come into my world or for me to pass into yours. I know that you are wiser and cleverer than I am, but I can learn. I have been learning all the time. Are we always to remain at this great distance?"

"Dear Isobel," I answered, "you forget that I am more than twice your age. You are eighteen, and I am thirty-four. I cannot make myself young like you. I cannot call back the years, however much I might wish to do so. And for the rest, I have been your guardian. I, a poor writer of no particular family and very meagre fortune, and you my ward, a princess standing at the opposite pole of life. I have had to remember these things, Isobel."

She leaned a little further across the table. Again her eyes held mine, and I felt my heart beat like a boy's at the touch of her soft white fingers as she laid her hand on mine.

"I wish," she murmured, "oh, I wish——"

"So we've found you at last, have we?"

Isobel's speech was never ended. Mabane and Arthur stood within a few feet of us, the former grave, the latter white and angry. I rose slowly to my feet and held out my hand to Allan.

"I am glad to see you, Allan!" I said.

He looked first at my hand, and afterwards at me. Then, with a sigh of relief, he took it and nearly wrung it off.

"And I can't tell you how glad I am to see you both again!" he exclaimed. "We've heard strange stories—or rather Arthur has—from his friend Lady Delahaye, and at last we decided to come over and find out all about it for ourselves. Don't take any notice of Arthur," he added under his breath, "he's not quite himself."

Arthur was standing with his back to me, talking to Isobel. Certainly her welcome was flattering enough. I realized with a sudden gravity that I had not heard her laugh like this since she had been in England. Arthur continued talking in a low, earnest tone.

"How did you find us?" I asked Allan.

"We called at the Rue de St. Antoine," he answered. "The housekeeper said that she had heard you talk about dining at one of these places. Arnold?"

"Well?"

"Why are you and Isobel staying on in Paris?"

"First of all," I answered promptly, "we had to stay for the funeral, and now there are some legal formalities which cannot be finished until to-morrow. I am Monsieur Feurgéres' executor, Allan, and he has left me twenty thousand pounds. Isobel has the rest."

"I am delighted, old chap," Mabane declared heartily. "In fact, I'll drink your health."

I called a waiter and ordered liqueurs. Arthur took his with an ill grace, and he still avoided any direct speech with me. Isobel was evidently uneasy, and looked at me once or twice as though anxious that I should break up their tête-à-tête. But when I had paid the bill and we rose to go, Allan passed his arm through mine, and I was forced to let the two go on.

"Let the boy have his chance," Allan said, pausing a little as we turned into the Boulevard. "He's in such a state that he won't listen to reason only from her."

"But," I protested, "it is absurd for him to speak to her. Does he know who she is? The Princess Isobel of Waldenburg! Their little kingdom is small enough, but they play at royalty there."

Allan nodded.

"He knows. But he's a good-looking boy, and the girls have spoilt him a little. He has an idea that she cares for him."

"Impossible!" I declared, sharply.

"No! Not impossible!" Allan answered, shaking his head. "They have been together a great deal, you must remember, and Arthur can be a very delightful companion when he chooses. No, it isn't impossible, Arnold."

I shook my head.

"Isobel's future is already arranged," I said. "In three days' time I am taking her to her grandfather. If he receives her, as I believe that he will receive her, she will pass out of our lives as easily as she came into them. She will marry a grand duke, perhaps even a petty king. She will be plunged into all manner of excitements and gaiety. Her years with us will never be mentioned at Court. She herself will soon learn to look back on them as a quaint episode."

"You do not believe it, Arnold?" Mabane declared scornfully.

"Heaven only knows what I believe," I answered, with a little burst of bitterness. "Look at that!"

We had reached the Rue de St. Antoine. Isobel stood in the doorway at the apartments waiting for us. But Arthur had already disappeared.

---

CHAPTER VII

I examined the tickets carefully and placed them in my pocket-book. Then I paused to light a cigarette on my way out of the office, and almost immediately felt a hand upon my arm. I looked at first at the hand. It was feminine and delicately gloved. Then I looked upwards into the blue eyes of Lady Delahaye.

"Abominable!" she murmured. "You are not glad to see me!"

I raised my hat.

"The Boulevard des Italiennes," I said, "has never seemed to me to be a place peculiarly suitable for the display of emotion."

"Come and try the Rue Strelitz," she answered, smiling.

I glanced down at her. She was gowned even more perfectly than usual—Parisienne to the finger-tips. She had too all the delightful confidence of a woman who knows that she is looking her best.

I smiled back at her. It was impossible to take her seriously.

"Your invitation," I said, "sounds most attractive. But I am curious to know what would happen to me in the Rue Strelitz. Should I be offered poison in a jewelled cup, or disposed of in a cruder fashion? Let me make my will first, and I will come. I am really curious!"

"Arnold," she said, looking up at me with very bright eyes, "you are brutal."

"Not quite that, I hope," I protested.

"Let me tell you something," she continued.

We were in rather a conspicuous position. Lady Delahaye seemed suddenly to realize it.

"May I beg for your escort a little way?" she said. "I am not comfortable upon the Boulevard alone."

"You could scarcely fail," I remarked, throwing away my cigarette, "to be an object of attention from the Frenchman, who is above all things a judge of your sex. I will accompany you a little way with pleasure. Shall we take a fiacre?"

"I would rather walk," she answered. "Do you mind coming this way? I will not take you far."

"I have two whole unoccupied hours," I assured her, "which are very much at your service."

"Where, then," she asked, "is Isobel?"

"Shopping with Tobain," I answered.

"Are you not afraid," she asked with a smile, "to send her out alone with Tobain?"

"Not in the least," I answered. "Monsieur Feurgéres' only friend in Paris was the chief commissioner of police, and he has been good enough to take great interest in us. Isobel is well watched."

"I wonder," she said, after a moment's pause, "whether you have still any faith in me!"

"My dear lady!"

"I wish I could make you believe me. The—her Highness—she prefers us here to call her Madame—has relinquished altogether her designs against you. She desires an alliance."

"Is this," I asked, "an invitation to me to join in the spoils? Am I to become murderer, or poisoner, or abductor, or what?"

Lady Delahaye bit her lip.

"You are altogether too severe," she said. "Madame simply realizes that she has been mistaken. She is willing for Isobel to be restored to her grandfather. It will mean a million or so less dowry for Adelaide, but that must be faced. Madame desires to make peace with you."

"I am charmed," I answered. "May I ask exactly what this means?"

Lady Delahaye smiled up at me.

"The Archduchess will explain to you herself," she said. "I am taking you to her."

I slackened my pace.

"I think not," I said. "To tell you the truth, the Archduchess terrifies me. I see myself inveigled into a room with a trap-door, or knocked on the head by hired bullies, and all manner of disagreeable things. No, Lady Delahaye, I think that I will not run the risk."

She laughed softly.

"I know that you will come," she said softly.

"And why?" I asked.

"Because you are a man, and you do not know fear!"

I raised my hat and proceeded.

"My head is turned," I said. "Nothing flatters a coward so much as the imputation of bravery. I think that I shall go with you anywhere."

"Even—to the Rue Strelitz?"

"My courage may fail me at the last moment," I answered. "At present it feels equal even to the Rue Strelitz."

Again she laughed.

"You are a fraud, Arnold," she declared. "As if we did not know—I and Madame and all of us, that in Paris, even throughout France, you could walk safely into any den of thieves you choose. Your courage isn't worth a snap of the fingers. Any man can be brave who has the archangels of Dotant at his elbows."

"What an easily pricked reputation," I answered regretfully. "Well, it is true. Dotant was Feurgéres' greatest friend, and even Isobel might walk the streets of Paris alone and in safety. Hence, I presume, the amiable desire of the Archduchess for an alliance."

Lady Delahaye shrugged her lace-clad shoulders.

"My dear Arnold," she said, "for myself I adore candour, and why should I try and deceive you? Madame has played a losing game, and knows it. She has the courage to admit defeat. She can still offer enough to make an alliance desirable. For instance, those tickets in your pocket for Illghera will take you there, it is true, but they will not take you into the presence of the King."

"The King," I remarked pensively, "leads a retired life."

"He does," Lady Delahaye answered. "He has the greatest objection to visitors, and for a stranger to obtain an audience is almost an impossibility. He never leaves the grounds of the villa, and his secretary, who opens all his letters, is—a friend of Madame's."

"You have put your case admirably," I remarked. "If Madame is sincere, I should at least like to hear what she has to say."

Lady Delahaye drew a little sigh of content.

"At last," she exclaimed, "I do believe that you are going to behave like a reasonable person."

I could not refrain from the natural retort.

"I have an idea," I said, "that up to now my actions have been fairly well justified."

We were mounting the steps of her house. She looked round and raised her eyebrows.

"We must let bygones be bygones!" she said. "Madame has declared that henceforth she adjures all intrigue."

A footman took my hat and stick in the hall. Lady Delahaye led me into a small boudoir leading out of a larger room. She herself only opened the door and closed it, remaining outside. I was alone with the Archduchess.

She rose slowly to her feet, a very graceful and majestic-looking person, with a suggestion of Isobel in her thin neck and the pose of her head. She did not hold out her hand, and she surveyed me very critically. I ventured to bestow something of the same attention upon her. She was certainly a very beautiful woman, and her expression by no means displeasing. She had Isobel's dark blue eyes, and there was a humorous line about her mouth which astonished me.

"I am not offering you my hand, Mr. Greatson," she said, "because I presume that until we understand each other better it would be a mere matter of form. Still, I am glad that you have come to see me."

"I am very glad too, Madame," I answered, "especially if my visit leads to a cessation of the somewhat remarkable proceedings of the last few weeks."

The Archduchess smiled.

"Well," she said, "I am forced to admit myself beaten. I have been ill-served, it is true, but I suppose my methods are antiquated."

"They belong properly," I admitted, "to a few centuries ago."

Madame smiled a little queerly.

"A few centuries ago," she said, "I fancy that if our family history is true, the affair would have been more simple."

"I can well believe it," I answered.

Madame relapsed into her chair, from which I judged that the preliminary skirmishing was over.

"You will please to be seated, Mr. Greatson!"

I obeyed.

"I am not going to play the hypocrite with you, sir," she said quietly. "It is not worth while, is it? The object of the struggle between us has been, on my part, to keep Isobel and her grandfather apart. You have doubtless correctly gauged my motive. Isobel's mother was my father's favourite child. If he had an idea that her child was alive, he would receive her without a word. She would completely usurp the place of Adelaide, my own daughter, in his affection—and in his will."

"In his will!" I repeated quietly. "Yes, I understand."

Madame nodded.

"It is quite simple," she said. "For myself I am willing to admit that I am an ambitious woman. Money for its own sake I take no heed of, but it remains always one of the great levers of the world, and it is the only lever by means of which I can gain what I desire. I never forget that the country over which my father rules was once an absolute kingdom, and semi-Royalty does not appeal to me. The betrothal of my daughter Adelaide to Ferdinand of Saxonia was of my planning entirely. The dowry required by the Council of Saxonia is so large that it could not possibly be paid if any portion of my father's fortune, great though it is, is diverted towards Isobel. Hence my desire to keep Isobel and her grandfather apart."

"Madame," I said, "you are candour itself. I can only regret that it is my hard fate to oppose such admirable plans."

"I have been given to understand," the Archduchess said, "that it is now your intention to take Isobel yourself to Illghera!"

"The tickets," I murmured, "are in my pocket."

Madame bowed.

"Well," she said, "I have seen and heard enough of you to make no further effort to thwart or even to influence you. Yet I have a proposition to make. First of all, consider these things. If we come to no arrangement with each other I shall use every means I can to prevent your obtaining an interview with my father. Everything is in my favour. He is very old, he has a hatred of strangers, he grants audiences to no one. He never passes outside the grounds of the villa, and all the gates are guarded by sentries, who admit no one save those who have the entrée. Then, if you attempt to approach him by correspondence, his private secretary, who opens every letter, is one of my own appointing. I have exaggerated none of these things. It will be difficult for you to approach the King. You may succeed—you seem to have the knack of success—but it will take time. Isobel's re-appearance will be without dignity, and open to many remarks for various reasons. You may even fail to convince my father, and if you failed the first time there would be no second opportunity."

"What you say, Madame," I admitted, "is reasonable. I have never assumed that as yet my task is completed. I recognize fully the difficulties that are still before me."

"You have common-sense, Mr. Greatson, I am glad to see," she continued. "I am the more inclined to hope that you will accede to my proposition. Briefly, it is this! Let me have the credit of bringing Isobel to her grandfather. Her year in London would at all times, in these days of scandal, be a somewhat delicate matter to publish. What you have done, you have done, as I very well know, from no hope of or desire for reward. Efface yourself. It will be for Isobel's good. I myself shall stand sponsor for her to the world. I shall have discovered her in the convent here, and I shall take her back to her rightful place with triumph. All your difficulties then will vanish, your end will have been creditably and adequately attained. For myself the advantage is obvious. A difference to Adelaide it must make, but it will inevitably be less if the credit of her discovery remains with me. Have I made myself clear, Mr. Greatson?"

"Perfectly," I answered. "But you forget there is Isobel herself to be considered. She is no longer a child. She has opinions and a will of her own."

"She owes too much to you," Madame replied quietly, "to disregard your wishes."

I believed from the first that the woman was in earnest, and her proposal an honest one. And yet I hesitated. The past was a little recent. She showed that she read my thoughts.

"Come," she said, "I will prove to you that I mean what I say. To-night I will give a dinner-party—informal, it is true, but the Prince of Cleves, my cousin the Cardinal, and your own ambassador, shall come. I will introduce Isobel as my niece. The affair will then be established. Do you consent?"

For one moment I hesitated. I knew very well what my answer meant. Absolute effacement, the tearing out of my life for ever of what had become the sweetest part of it. In that single moment it seemed to me that I realized with something like complete despair the barrenness of the days to come.

"Madame, if Isobel is to be persuaded," I answered, "I consent."

---

CHAPTER VIII

"This, then," the Prince remarked, raising his eyeglass, "is the young lady whose romantic history you have been recounting to me? But, my dear lady, she is charming!"

Madame held out her hands affectionately and kissed Isobel, who had entered the room with her cousin, on both cheeks. Then she took her by the hand and presented her to the Prince of Cleves and several others of the company. Isobel was a little pale, but her manner was perfectly easy and self-possessed. She was dressed, somewhat to my surprise, in the deepest mourning, and she even wore a band of black velvet around her neck.

"My dear child," her aunt said pleasantly, "I scarcely think that your toilette is a compliment to us all. White should be your colour for many years to come."

Isobel raised her eyes. Her tone was no louder than ordinary, but somehow her voice seemed to be possessed of unusually penetrating qualities.

"My dear aunt," she said, "you forget I am in mourning for my stepfather, Monsieur Feurgéres, who was very good to me."

A company of perfectly bred people accepted the remark in sympathetic silence. There was not even an eyebrow raised, but I fancy that Isobel's words, calmly spoken and with obvious intent, struck the keynote of her future relations with her aunt.

Isobel, a few minutes later, brought her cousin over to me.

"Adelaide is very anxious to know you, Arnold!" she said quietly. This was all the introduction she offered. Immediately afterwards her aunt called Isobel away to be presented to a new arrival.

"Mr. Greatson," Adelaide said earnestly, "I cannot tell you how delighted I am that all this trouble is over, and that Isobel is coming to us. But I think—I think she is paying too great a price. I think my mother is hatefully, wickedly cruel!"

"My dear young lady," I protested, "I do not think that you must say that. Your mother's conditions are necessary. In fact, whether she made them or not, I think that they would be inevitable."

"You are not even to come to Illghera with us? Not to visit us even?"

I shook my head.

"I belong to the great family of Bohemians," I reminded her, "who have no possessions and but one dress suit. What should I do at Court?"

"What indeed!" she answered, with a little sigh, "for you are a citizen of the greater world!"

"There is no such thing," I answered. "We carry our own world with us. We make it small or large with our own hands."

"For some," she murmured, "the task then is very difficult. Where one lives in a forcing-house of conventions, and the doors are fast locked, it is very easy to be stifled, but it is hard indeed to breathe."

"Princess," I said gravely, "have you examined the windows?"

"I do not understand you," she answered.

"But it is simple, surely," I declared. "Even if you must remain in the forcing-house, it is for you to open the windows and breathe what air you will. For your thoughts at least are free, and it is of our thoughts that our lives are fashioned."

She sighed.

"Ah, Mr. Greatson," she said, "one does not talk like that at Court."

"You have a great opportunity," I answered. "Character is a flower which blossoms in all manner of places. Sometimes it comes nearest to perfection in the most unlikely spots. Prosperity and sunshine are not the best things in the world for it. Sometimes in the gloomy and desolate places its growth is the sturdiest and its flowers the sweetest."

The service of dinner had been announced. The English Ambassador took Adelaide away from me, but as she accepted his arm she looked me in the eyes with a grave but wonderfully sweet smile.

"I thank you very much, Mr. Greatson," she said. "Our little conversation has been most pleasant."

The Archduchess swept up to me. She was looking a little annoyed.

"Mr. Greatson," she said, "Isobel is pleading shyness—an absurd excuse. She insists that you take her in to dinner. I suppose she must have her own way to-night, but it is annoying."

Madame looked at me as though it were my fault that her plans were disarranged, which was a little unfair. And then Isobel, very serene, but with that weary look about the eyes which seemed only to have increased during the evening, came quietly up and took my arm.

"If this is to be our last evening, Arnold, we will at least spend as much of it as possible together," she said gently. "I will be a very dutiful niece, aunt, to-morrow."

We moved off together, but not before I was struck with something singular in Madame's expression. She stood looking at us two as though some wholly new idea had presented itself to her. She did not follow us into the dining-room for some few moments.

The dinner itself, for an informal one, was a very brilliant function. There were eighteen of us at a large round table, which would easily have accommodated twenty-four. The Cardinal, whose scarlet robes in themselves formed a strange note of colour, sat on the Archduchess's right, touching scarcely any of the dishes which were continually presented to him, and sipping occasionally from the glass of water at his side. The other men and women were all distinguished, and their conversation, mostly carried on in French, was apt, and at times brilliant. Isobel and I perhaps, the former particularly, contributed least to the general fund. Isobel met the advances of her right-hand neighbour with the barest of monosyllables. Lady Delahaye, who sat on my left, left me for the most part discreetly alone. Yet we two spoke very little. I could see that Isobel was disposed to be hysterical, and that her outward calm was only attained by means of an unnatural effort. Yet I fancied that my being near soothed her, and every time I spoke to her or she to me, a certain relief came into her face. All the while I was conscious of one strange thing. The Archduchess, although she had the Cardinal on one side and the Prince of Cleves on the other, was continually watching us. Her interest in their conversation was purely superficial. Her interest in us, on the contrary, was an absorbing one. I could not understand it at all.

The conclusion of dinner was marked by an absence of all ceremony. The cigarettes had already been passed round before the Archduchess rose, but those who chose to remain at the table did so. Isobel leaned over and whispered in my ear.

"Come with me into the drawing-room. I want to talk to you."

I obeyed, and the Archduchess seemed to me purposely to leave us alone. We sat in a quiet corner, and when I saw that there were tears in Isobel's eyes, I knew that my time of trial was not yet over.

"Arnold," she said quietly, "you care—whether I am happy or not? You have done so much for me—you must care!"

"You cannot doubt it, Isobel," I answered.

"I do not. This sort of life will not suit me at all. I do not trust my aunt. I am weary of strangers. Let us give it all up. Take me back to London with you. I feel as though I were going into prison."

"Dear Isobel," I said, "you must remember why we decided that it was right for you to rejoin your people."

"Oh, I know," she answered. "But even to the last Monsieur Feurgéres hesitated. My mother would never have wished me to be miserable."

I shook my head.

"I believe that Feurgéres was right," I answered. "I believe that your mother would wish to see you in your rightful place. I believe that it is your duty to claim it."

Then I think that for the first time Isobel was unfair to me, and spoke words which hurt.

"You do not wish to have me back again," she said slowly. "I have been a trouble to you, I know, and I have upset your life. You want me to go away."

I did not answer her. I could not. She leaned forward and looked into my face, and instantly her tone changed. Her soft fingers clutched mine for a moment.

"Dear Arnold," she whispered, "I am sorry! Forgive me! I will do what you think best. I did not mean to hurt you."

"I am quite sure that you did not, Isobel," I answered. "Listen! I am speaking now for Allan as well as for myself, and for Arthur too. To tear you out of our lives is the hardest thing we have ever had to do. Your coming changed everything for us. We were never so happy before. We shall never know anything like it again. If you were what we thought, a nameless and friendless child, you would be welcome back again, more welcome than I can tell you. But you have your own life to live, and it is not ours. You have your own place to fill in the world, and, forgive me, your mother's memory to vindicate. Monsieur Feurgéres was right. For her sake you must claim the things that are yours."

"But shall I never see you again, Arnold?" she asked, with a little catch in her breath.

I set my teeth. I could see that the Archduchess was watching us.

"Our ways must lie far apart, Isobel," I said. "But who can say? Many things may happen. The Princess Isobel may visit the studios when she is in London or at Homburg. She may patronize the poor writer whose books she knows."

Isobel sat and listened to me with stony face.

"I wonder," she murmured, "why the way to one's duty lies always through Hell?"

Isobel's lips were quivering, and I dared make no effort to console her. The Archduchess came suddenly across the room to us, and bent affectionately over Isobel.

"My dear child," she said, "you are overtired. Go and talk to Adelaide. She is alone in the music-room. I have something to say to Mr. Greatson."

Isobel rose and left us at once. The Archduchess took her place. She was carrying a fan of black ostrich feathers, and she waved it languidly for some time as though in deep thought.

"Mr. Greatson," she said at length.

I turned and found her eyes fixed curiously upon me. These were moments which I remembered all my life, and every little detail in connection with them seemed flashed into my memory. The strange perfume, something like the burning of wood spice, wafted towards me by her fan, the glitter of the blue black sequins which covered her magnificent gown, the faint smile upon her parted lips, and the meaning in her eyes—all these things made their instantaneous and ineffaceable impression. Then she leaned a little closer to me.

"Mr. Greatson," she repeated, "I know your secret!"

---

CHAPTER IX

I am afraid that for the moment I lost my self-possession. I had gone through so much during the last few hours, and this woman spoke with such confidence—so quietly, and yet with such absolute conviction—that I felt the barriers which I had built about myself crumbling away. I answered her lamely, and without conviction.

"My secret! I do not know what you mean. I have no secret!"

The black feathers fluttered backwards and forwards once more. She regarded me still with the same quiet smile.

"You love my niece, Mr. Greatson," she said.

"Madame," I answered, "you are jesting!"

"Indeed I am not," she declared. "I have made a statement which is perfectly true."

"I deny it!" I exclaimed hoarsely.

"You can deny it as much as you like, if you think it worth while to perjure yourself," she replied coolly. "The truth remains. I have had a good deal of experience in such matters. You love Isobel, and I am not at all sure that Isobel does not love you."

"Madame," I protested, "such statements are absurd. I am no longer a young man. I am thirty-four years old. I have no longer any thought of marriage. Isobel is no more than a child. I was nearly her present age when she was born. The whole idea, as I trust you will see, is ridiculous."

The Archduchess regarded me still with unchanged face.

"Your protestations, Mr. Greatson," she said, "amuse, but utterly fail to convince me."

"Let us drop the subject, then," I said hastily. "At least, if you persist in your hallucination, I hope you will believe this. I have never spoken a word of what could be called love-making to the child in my life."

"I believe you implicitly," she answered promptly. "I believe that I know and can appreciate your position. Let me tell you that I honour you for it."

"Madame," I murmured, "you are very good. Let us now abandon the subject."

"By no means," she answered. "On the contrary, I should like to discuss it with you fully."

"Madame!" I exclaimed.

"Let us suppose for a moment," she went on calmly, "that I am correct, that you really love Isobel, but that your peculiar position has imposed upon your sense of honour the necessity for silence. Well, your guardianship of her may now be considered to have ended. From to-night it has passed into my hands. Still, you would say the difference between your positions is immeasurable. You are, I doubt not, a gentleman by birth, but Isobel comes from one of the ancient and noble families of the world, and might almost expect to share a throne with the man whom she elects to marry. It is true, in effect, Mr. Greatson, that you are of different worlds."

"Madame," I answered, "why do you trouble to demonstrate such obvious facts? They are incontestable. But supposing for a moment that your surmises concerning myself were true, you will understand that they are painful for me to listen to."

"You must have patience, Mr. Greatson," she said quietly. "At present I am feeling my way through my thoughts. There is rash blood in Isobel's veins, and I should like her life to be happier than her mother's. She is unconventional and a lover of freedom. The etiquette of our Court at Illghera will chafe her continually. I wonder, Mr. Greatson, if she would not be happier—married to some one of humbler birth, perhaps, but who can give her the sort of life she desires."

I was for a moment dumb with astonishment. Apart from the amazement of the whole thing, the Archduchess was not in the least the sort of person to be seriously interested in the abstract question of Isobel's happiness. At least, I should not have supposed her capable of it. I imagine that she must have read my thoughts, for after a searching glance at me she continued:

"You doubt my disinterestedness, Mr. Greatson. Perhaps you are right. I wish the child well, but there is also this fact to be considered. Isobel married to an English gentleman such as, say, yourself, would be no longer a serious rival to my daughter in the affections of her grandfather."

Then indeed I began to understand. What a woman of resource! She watched me closely behind the feathers of her fan.

"Come," she said, "this time my plot is an innocent one, and it is for Isobel's happiness as well as for my daughter's benefit. Speak to her now. Marry her at once, here in Paris, and I will give her for dowry twenty thousand pounds!"

I ground my heel into the carpet, and I was grateful for those long black feathers which waved gracefully in front of my face. For I was tempted—sorely tempted. The woman's words rang like mad music in my brain. Speak to her! Why not? It was the great joy of the world which waited for me to pluck it. Why not? I was not an old man, the child was fond of me, a single word of compliance, and I might step into my kingdom. Oh, the rapture of it, the wonderful joy of taking her hands in mine, of dropping once and for ever the mask from my face, the gag from my tongue! A rush of wild thoughts turned me dizzy. My secret was no longer a secret at all. The Archduchess leaned a little closer to me, and whispered behind those fluttering feathers—

"You are a very wonderful person, Mr. Greatson, that you have kept silence so long. The necessity for it has passed. The child loves you. I am sure of it."

But my moment of weakness was over. I had a sudden vision of Feurgéres, standing on the stage, listening with bowed head to the thunder of applause, but with his eyes turned always to the darkened box, with its lonely bouquet of pink roses—lonely to all save him, who alone saw the hand which held them—of Feurgéres in his sanctuary, bending lovingly over that chair, empty to all save him, Feurgéres, with that smile of unearthly happiness upon his lips—calm, debonair and steadfast. This was the man who had trusted me. I raised my head.

"Madame," I said quietly, "what you suggest is impossible."

She stared at me in incredulous astonishment.

"But I do not understand," she exclaimed weakly. "You agree, surely?"

I shook my head.

"On the contrary, Madame," I said, "I beg that you will not allude further to the matter."

The Archduchess muttered something in German to herself which I did not understand. Perhaps it was just as well.

"You will vouchsafe me," she begged, speaking very slowly, and keeping her eyes fixed on me, "some reason for your refusal?"

"I will give you two," I answered. "First, it is contrary to the spirit of my promise to Monsieur Feurgéres."

Her lip curled.

"Well?"

"Secondly," I continued, "I should be taking a dishonourable advantage of my position with regard to Isobel. She is very grateful to me, and she would very likely mistake her sentiments if I were to speak to her as you suggest. She is too young to know what love is. She has met no young men of her own rank, she does not understand in the least what sort of position is in store for her."

"These are your reasons, then?"

"I venture to think that they are sufficient ones, Madame," I answered.

The Archduchess rose.

"We shall need a new Cervantes," she remarked, "to do justice to the Englishman of to-day. I shall keep my word, Mr. Greatson, as regards Isobel, and I can promise you this. If gaiety and eligible suitors, and the luxury of her new life are not sufficient to stifle any sentimental follies she may be nursing just now, I will not rest till I find other means. Adelaide's future is arranged. I will set myself to make Isobel's equally brilliant. I will make her the beauty of Europe. She shall forget in a month the squalid days of her life with you and your friends in an attic."

"So long as Isobel is happy," I answered, "my mission is accomplished, and I am content."

"You are a fool and a liar!" she answered contemptuously. "You will love her all your days, and you know it. You will grow to curse the memory of this hour in which you threw away the only chance you will ever have of winning her. The only chance, mind, I will answer for that. I wish you good-evening, Mr. Greatson. You are excused. Isobel, as you are aware, remains here. You will find her in the music-room with Adelaide. Go and make your adieux, and make them quickly. You will be interrupted in three minutes."

She swept away from me with only the slightest inclination of her head. I made my way to the music-room, where Isobel and her cousin were sitting together. Directly I entered, the latter, with a little nod of curious meaning to me, rose and left us alone. I held out my hands.

"Isobel, dear," I said, "this must be—our farewell, then—for a time!"

She placed her hands in mine. They were as cold as ice. Her cheeks were white, her eyes seemed fastened upon mine. All the while her bosom was heaving convulsively, but she said nothing.

"I can only wish you what Arthur and Allan have already wished you," I said, "happiness! You have every chance of it, dear. You surely deserve it, for you brightened up our dull lives so that we can, no one of us, ever forget you. Think of us sometimes. Good-bye!"

I stooped and kissed her lightly on the cheek. But suddenly her arms were wound around my neck. With a strength which was amazing she held me to her.

"Arnold!" she sobbed. "Oh, Arnold!"

Her lips were upon mine, and in another second I should have been lost, for my arms would have been around her. The door opened and closed. We heard the jingling of sequins, the sweep of a silken train. The Archduchess had entered. Isobel's arms fell from my neck, but her cheeks were scarlet, and her eyes like stars.

"You—are going?" she pleaded.

"I am going," I answered huskily.

The Archduchess came down the room, humming a light tune.

"So the dread farewell is over, then!" she exclaimed, with light good humour. "Come, child, no red eyes. Remember, a Waldenburg weeps only twice in her life. Once more, good-night, Mr. Greatson."

I had reached the door. Isobel was standing still with outstretched arms. The Archduchess glided between us—and I went.

---

The next morning I travelled unseen by the Riviera express, to which the saloon of the Archduchess had been attached, all the way to Illghera. I saw her driven with the others to the villa.

Two days afterwards, from a hill overlooking the grounds, I saw an old gentleman in a pony chaise preceded by two footmen in dark green livery. Adelaide walked on one side, and Isobel on the other. That night I left Illghera for England.

---

CHAPTER X

I knew the moment I opened the door that changes were on foot. Our studio sitting-room was dismantled of many of its treasures. Allan, with his coat off and a pipe in his mouth, was throwing odds and ends in a promiscuous sort of way into a huge trunk which stood open upon the floor. Arthur, a few yards off, was rolling a cigarette.

Our meeting was not wholly free from embarrassment. I think that for the first time in our lives there was a cloud between Allan and myself. He stood up and faced me squarely.

"Arnold," he said, "where is Isobel?"

"In Illghera with her grandfather," I answered. "Where else should she be?"

"Are you sure?"

"I have seen her there with my own eyes," I affirmed.

There was a moment's pause. I saw the two exchange glances. Then Allan held out his hand.

"That damned woman again!" he exclaimed. "Forgive me, Arnold!"

"Willingly," I answered, "when I know what for."

"Suspecting you. Lady Delahaye wrote Arthur a note, in which she said that the Archduchess and you had made fresh plans. You can guess what they were. And Illghera was off. You did hurry us away from Paris a bit, you know, and I was fool enough to imagine for a moment that there might be something in it. Forgive me, Arnold!" he added, holding out his hand.

"And me!" Arthur exclaimed, extending his.

I held out a hand to each. There was something grimly humorous in this reception, after all that I had suffered during the last few days. My first impulse of anger died away almost as quickly as it had been conceived.

"My friends," I said, "the Archduchess did propose some such scheme to me, but you forget that my honour was involved, not only to you, not only to the child, but to a dead man. I can look you both in the face and assure you that in word and letter I have been faithful to my trust."

"I knew it!" Allan declared gruffly. "Dear old chap, forgive me!"

"I am the brute who dangled the letter before his eyes," Arthur exclaimed bitterly, "and I am the only one of the three who has broken our covenant."

"My dear friends," I said slowly, "the things which are past, let us forget. Isobel has gone back to the life which claimed her. No barrier which human hand could rear could separate her from us so effectually and irrevocably as the mere fact that she has taken up the position which belongs to her. She is the Princess Isobel of Waldenburg, a king's grandchild. And we are—what we are! Let me now make my confession to you. I, too, loved her."

The two hands which held mine tightened for a moment their grasp. The old "camaraderie" was established once more.

"It is I who was responsible for her coming," I continued. "It is only fitting that I, too, should suffer. How she grew into our hearts you all know. She has gone, and nothing can ever be the same. Yet I for one do not regret it. I regret nothing! I am content to live with the memory of these wonderful days she spent with us."

"And I!" Allan declared.

"And I!" Arthur echoed.

I wrung their hands, for it was a joy to me to feel that we had come once more into complete accord.

"You know what sort of a state we were drifting into when she came," I continued. "We were like thousands of others. We were rubbing shoulders, hour by hour and day by day, with the world which takes no account of beautiful things. She came and laid the magician's hand upon our lives. We had perforce to alter our ways, to alter our surroundings, our amusements, our ideals. Joy came with her, and pain may find a secret place in our hearts now that she has gone, but I do not think that either of us would willingly blot out from his life these last two years. Would you, Arthur?"

"Not I!" he declared. "We had to learn ourselves to teach her. To chuck the things that were rotten, anyhow, just because she was around. Jolly good for us, too!"

"I agree with Arthur and you," Allan said. "I agree with all that you have said. The child was dear to me too. So dear, that I do not think that it would be easy to go back to our old life without her. That is why——"

He glanced around the room. Our hands fell apart. I lit a cigarette and looked at the open trunk.

"You are going away, Allan?"

He nodded.

"I'm off to Canada," he said. "I've an old uncle there who's worth looking after, and he's always bothering me to pay him a visit. Right time of the year, too—and hang it all, Arnold, I've sat here for a week in front of an empty canvas, and I'd go to hell sooner than stand it any longer!"

"And you, Arthur?"

"I have been appointed manager of our Paris Depôt," Arthur answered a little grandiloquently. "I couldn't refuse it. Much better pay and more fun, and all that sort of thing, and—oh, hang it all, Arnold, is it likely a fellow could stay here now she's gone?" he wound up, with a little catch in his throat.

So the old days were over! I looked at my desk, and by the side of it was the chair in which she used sometimes to sit while I read to her. Then I think that I, too, was glad that this change was to come.

"There is one thing, Arnold," Mabane said quietly, "about her things. We locked the door of her room. Mrs. Burdett has packed up most of her clothes, but there are the ornaments and a few little things of her own. We should like to go in—Arthur and I. We have waited for you."

"We will go now," I answered. "She will have no need of anything that she has left behind. We will each choose a keepsake, and lock the rest up."

We entered the room all together, almost on tiptoe. If we had been wearing hats I am sure that we should have taken them off. How, with such trifling means at her command, she could have left behind in that tiny chamber so potent an impression of daintiness and comfort I cannot tell. But there it was. Her little bed, with its spotless counterpane, was hung with pink muslin. There was a lace spread upon her toilet-table, on which her little oddments of silver made a brave show. Only one thing seemed out of place, a worn little slipper peeping out from under a chair. I thrust it into my pocket. The others took some trifle from the table. Then, as silently as we had entered, we left the room. As I turned the key I choked down something in my throat, and did my best to laugh—a little unnaturally, I am afraid.

"Come!" I cried, "it is I who am responsible for this attack of sentiment. I will show you how to get rid of it. You dine with me at Hautboy's. I have money—lots of it. Feurgéres left me twenty thousand pounds. Hautboy's and a magnum of the best. How long will you fellows be dressing?"

They tried to fall into my mood. Allan mixed cocktails. We drank and smoked and shouted to one another uproariously from our rooms as we changed our clothes. We drove to Hautboy's three in a hansom, and Arthur spent his usual five minutes chaffing the young lady behind the tiny bar. But when the wine came, and our glasses were filled, a sudden silence fell upon us. We looked at each other, and we all knew what was in the minds of all of us. It was Allan who spoke.

"To Isobel!" he said softly.

We drank in silence, each busy with his own thoughts. But afterwards Arthur raised his glass high above his head.

"To the Princess Isobel!" he cried. "Long life and good luck to her!"

Afterwards there were no more toasts.

---

Arthur and Allan went their several ways within twenty-four hours of our farewell dinner. I saw them both off, and I forced them with great difficulty to share to some small extent in Feurgéres' legacy. Then I took some rooms near my club in the heart of London, and line for line, word for word, I re-wrote the whole of the story which I had not dared to show to Isobel, determined that the one thing I still had which was part of her body and soul should be the best that my brain and skill could fashion. So the winter and the early spring passed, and then my story was published.

---

CHAPTER XI

A miracle of white daintiness, from the spotless muslin of her gown to the creamy lace which hung from her parasol. So far as toilette went, Lady Delahaye was always an artist. Yet my pulses were unmoved, and my heart unstirred, as she stood under my dark cedar-tree and welcomed me with all the expression which her tone and eyes could command.

"So you see, Sir Hermit," she murmured, "what happens to those who will not go to the mountain? Seriously, I hope you are glad to see me."

"Why not?" I answered calmly. "Will you come inside, or shall we sit here in the shade?"

"Here, by all means," she answered, subsiding gracefully into a wicker chair.

"You will let me order you some tea?"

She checked my movement towards the house.

"For Heaven's sake, no! I have been paying calls all the afternoon with Mrs. Jerningham, and you know what that means. She has gone to the Hall now, and I am to pick her up in half an hour."

"You are staying at Eastford House, then?" I remarked.

"For a few days. Can you guess why?"

"The house parties there have the reputation of being amusing," I suggested.

She shook her head.

"It was not that. Can you make no better guess?"

"I am a dunce at riddles," I admitted.

"You are a dunce at many things," she replied. "The reason I came was because I knew that you were living in these parts, and I had a fancy to see you again."

"You are very good," I remarked.

She looked at me critically.

"You have not changed," she said slowly. "One would almost say that the life of a recluse agrees with you. You have by no means the white and wasted look which I expected. Is it fame which you have found so potent a tonic?"

I laughed lightly.

"Don't call it fame," I answered. "Success, if you will. My profession is so much of a lottery. A whiff of public opinion, a criticism which hits the popular fancy, and the bubble is floated. I'm not pretending that I don't appreciate it, but it was a stroke of luck all the same."

She was silent for a few moments. From outside we could hear the jingling of harness as Mrs. Jerningham's fat bays resented the onslaught of officious flies. Nearer at hand there was only the lazy humming of bees to break the stillness of the summer afternoon. Lady Delahaye sighed.

"You are talking nonsense, and you know it," she said. "I do not want to flatter you. Any man who has the trick of the pen, and chooses to give himself wholly and utterly away, can write a powerful story."

"I am afraid that I do not understand you," I protested.

"Yes, you do. You cut open your own heart, and you offered the world a magnifying glass to study its wounds. You wrote your own story. You told the tale of your own suffering. Of course it was strong, of course it rang with all the truth of genius. So you loved that child, Arnold! You, a man of the world, not a callow schoolboy. You loved her magnificently. Did she know?"

"She did not know," I answered. "She never will know."

"She may read the book!"

"She may read it, and yet not know," I answered.

"It is true," she murmured. "Unless she loved herself she might not understand."

Again we were silent for a while. The perfume of the cedars floated upon the hot breathless air. Lady Delahaye half closed her eyes and leaned back.

"You read the newspapers, Sir Hermit?"

"Sometimes."

"You have heard the news from Waldenburg?"

"I read of the King's death."

"And of the betrothal of the Princess Isobel?"

"Yes. I have read also of that."

"The cousins will both be the consorts of reigning sovereigns, small though their kingdoms may be. One reads great things of Adelaide. Her people call her already 'the well-beloved.'"

A swift rush of thought carried me back to the dark stormy crossing, when the rain had beaten in our faces, and the wind came booming down the Channel. Adelaide stood once more by my side. I heard the quiet, bitter words, the low, passionate cry of her troubled heart. "The well-beloved" of her people! After all, race tells.

"I spoke but twice alone to the Princess Adelaide," I said. "I learnt enough of her, however, to be sure that in any position she would do the thing that was right and gracious."

"And so will Isobel," Lady Delahaye said. "I know the race well. The men are degenerates, but the women have nerve to rule and courage to hold their own against the world. Isobel's future may well be the more brilliant of the two. Can you realize, I wonder, that Isobel of Waldenburg was once the child who filled your brain with such strange fancies?"

"I never think," I answered, "of Isobel of Waldenburg."

"You are wise," she answered. "She is as surely separated from us eternally as though she had made that little journey from which one does not return. Yet you—you are going to hug your wounds all your life. Is that wise, my friend?"

I laughed softly.

"You are mistaken," I assured her. "I have no wounds—not even regrets. I believe that there are few men happier. Look at my home!"

"It is beautiful," she admitted.

"My gardens, my flowers, my cedar-tree and my books," I said. "These are all a joy to me. What more can a man want? Friends have moods, and they pass away out of one's life. The friends who smile from my study wall are patient and always ready. There is one to fit every hour. They do not change. They are always ready to show me the way into the world beautiful, to cheer me when I am sad, to laugh with me when I am gay. You must not waste any sympathy on me, Lady Delahaye. The man who has learnt to live alone is the man who has learnt the greatest lesson life has to teach. He is the man for whom the sun shines always, who carries with him for ever the magic key."

Lady Delahaye disturbed the smoothness of my turf with the point of her parasol.

"Are there no times," she asked in a low tone, "when these things fail you? No times when like calls for like, when the human part of you finds the comfort of ashes a dead thing? You and your books and your flowers!" she cried scornfully, raising her head and looking at me with heightened colour. "Bah! You are a man, are you not, like the others? How long will these content you? How long will you stop your ears and forget that life has passions and joys which these dead things can never yield to you?"

"Until," I answered, "the magician comes who can make me believe it. And I am afraid, Lady Delahaye, that he has passed me by."

She rose to her feet.

"I am answered," she said. "I promise you that I will not intrude again into this Paradise of wood and stone. Give me a cigarette to keep off these flies, and take me down to the carriage. Thanks! If one might venture upon a prophecy, my dear Arnold, I think that I can see your fate very clearly written. I do not even need your hand to read it."

"Would the spell," I asked, "be broken if I shared the knowledge?"

"Not in the least," she answered, with a hard little laugh. "You will become one of those half-mad sort of creatures whom people call cranks, or you will marry your housekeeper. In either case you will deserve your fate."

So Lady Delahaye drove away down the white dusty road, and I walked back to the study from whence her coming had brought me. As I sat down to my interrupted work I smiled. How little she understood!

I wrote till seven o'clock. Punctually at that hour there was a discreet knock at the door, and my servant reminded me that it was time to change. At a quarter before eight I strolled into the garden and selected a piece of heliotrope for the buttonhole of my dinner coat. A few minutes later my dinner was served.

My table was a small round one set in front of the open French windows. Looking a little to the right I could see the extent of my domain—a low laurel hedge, a sloping field beyond, in which my two Alderneys were standing almost knee-deep amongst the buttercups; a ring fence, a paddock, and, beyond, the road. To the left were my gardens, the sweetness of which came stealing through the window with the very faintest breath of the slowly moving air, bordered by that ancient red brick wall, mellowed and crumbling with the sun and west winds of generations, and in front of me my lawn and the cedar-tree under which Lady Delahaye had sat an hour or so ago and prophesied evil things. My lips parted into a smile as I thought of her words. Did she indeed think me a creature so weak as to pile gloom on the top of sorrow, to shut my eyes to all the joys of life, because supreme happiness was denied me, to play skittles with my self-respect, and—marry a kitchen-maid? I, who had turned over great pages in the book of life! I, who had known Feurgéres! Wallace had left the room for a moment, and I raised my glass full of clear amber wine, and drank silently my evening toast. I drank to the memory of the greatest love I had ever known, to the man whose strong and beautiful life had taught me how to fashion my own. Perhaps my thoughts flashed a little further afield. It was so always when I thought of Feurgéres, but it was to the joyous and wonderful memory of those earlier days, to Isobel the child I drank. Isobel of Waldenburg had passed away into the world of shadows. I courted no heartaches by vain thoughts of her. I pored over no papers to find mention of her name. I was content with what had gone before.

I morbid! Lady Delahaye had judged me wrongly indeed. I, before whom two great worlds stretched themselves continually, full of countless treasures, always changing, yet always beautiful. Only yesterday I had seen the sun rise. I had seen the still slumbering world break into quivering life. I had seen the curtain roll up on a new act of this most wonderful of all plays to the music of an orchestra hidden indeed in my grove of chestnuts, but sweeter, more joyous, more full of the promise of perfect things than ever a violin touched by human fingers. Then the thrushes had hopped out on to my dew-spangled lawn, where before the hot sun the grey, gossamer-like mist was vanishing like breath from a mirror; my roses raised their heads, and the breeze from the west—a lazy, fluttering breeze—borrowed their sweetness; my peaches cracked through their full skins upon the wall, and the bees commenced their eternal lullaby of murmuring sounds. Then at night—such a night as this, too, promised to be—I had watched the shadows come creeping over the land when the sun had set and the moon had barely risen; a new order of things had come. The fire of the day was replaced by the infinite peace of night. Beyond the confines of my little domain the whole world lay hushed and hidden. There were few stars as yet to mock with their passionless serenity the toilers of the earth, worn out with the long day's struggle. Only a great quiet—a great, peaceful quiet—and the shadows of dim things!

I morbid, with eyes to see these things, with a whole room full of waiting friends, ready at a touch of my fingers, the turning of a page, to take me by the hand and lead into even other worlds as beautiful as this, to scale with me the mountains, or to wander along the flower-strewn valleys. Lady Delahaye was a very foolish woman. She had seen nothing of my well-ordered household, of the ease, the luxury—simple, yet almost Sybaritic—with which I had surrounded myself. She did not understand life from my point of view—life as Feurgéres had lived it. The life sentimental, but not passionate; the life to be evolved by will from the tangle of bruised hopes and hot desires. The life——

I set down my glass empty. The last drop had tasted like vinegar. Always one has to fight, and for a while I sat in silence before my table piled now with dishes of fruit. My hands gripped the sides of my chair, my eyes were fixed upon a twinkling light which had shot out from the distant hillside. Always one has to fight for the things worth having—and the pain soon passes.

In a few minutes I rose. I lit a cigarette from the box which Wallace had placed at my elbow, and with a handful more in my pocket I stepped outside. On the lawn under the cedar-tree something was lying—something pink and fluffy, and very soft to the fingers. As I held it at arm's length a faint, familiar perfume stole up from its flouncy depths. The pain was all gone now. I smiled as I looked at it. It was Lady Delahaye's parasol!

I turned it over meditatively. The fancy seized me that it had been left there on purpose—my last chance! Eastford House was barely a mile and a half away—a very reasonable after-dinner stroll. I smiled to myself as I summoned Wallace from the dining-room.

"Take this parasol over to Eastford House as soon as you have served my coffee," I directed. "Lady Delahaye must have left it here this afternoon."

"Very good, sir," Wallace answered, relieving me of my burden and carrying it into the house.

Then I departed on my usual evening pilgrimage. I entered the flower garden by a little iron gate, and walked slowly amongst my roses. Here the air was full of delicate scents—lavender insistent; mignonette faint, but penetrating; homely wall-flowers, sweet even as the roses themselves. Night insects now were buzzing around me; the bushes took to themselves phantasmal shapes; even the path, very narrow and overgrown, was hard to find. I filled my hand with flowers and made my way slowly back to the cedar-tree. The shadows were deeper now. It was the one hour of darkness before the rising of the late moon. I threw myself into a low chair, and the flowers on to the seat which encircled the cedar-tree. Oh, wonderful Feurgéres, who had taught me the sweetness of such moments as this!

Always she came the same way; yet to-night it seemed to me that a startling note of reality heralded her coming. The ghostliness of her movements, that noiseless flitting across the lawn were changed. Almost I could have sworn that the little iron gate had indeed been opened and closed, that real footsteps had fallen lightly enough, but, with actual sound, upon the gravel path, that I could hear the soft swish of a real dress from the slim white figure which came hesitatingly across the lawn. Oh, Feurgéres was a great man! It was a great thing which he had taught me. My pulses were thrilled with expectant joy. Reality itself could be no more real. But to-night—to-night was a triumph indeed! She was dressed differently. She wore a long white travelling cloak, a veil pushed back from her hat. I did not understand. My fancy had never dressed her like this. That little cry, her pause. Had I indeed done greater things than Feurgéres, and summoned to my side real flesh and blood?

"Arnold!"

I gripped the sides of my chair. I felt my breath coming shorter. A cry. I could not keep it back from my quivering lips.

"Isobel!"

I could not move. I was afraid of what I had done. And then she dropped on her knees by my side, and real arms were about my neck, real kisses were upon my lips. Then I no longer had any fear, for from whatever world she had come the joy of it was like a foretaste of heaven. I drew her to me, held her passionately, and I knew that this was no creature of my mind's fashioning, but a live woman, whose heart beat so wildly against my own....

"It was all Adelaide," she murmured presently. "She brought me your book, and afterwards we talked. She was alone with my grandfather—and then he sent for me. I was afraid, for this was in his last days. Shall I tell you what he said, Arnold?"

"Yes," I answered, tightening my grasp upon her. "Go on talking!" For I was fighting still for belief.

"He took my hand quite calmly, and I knew at once that I had nothing to fear. 'Isobel,' he said, 'they tell me that you have your mother's blood in your veins, that freedom means more to you than ambition, that you are a woman first and a Waldenburg afterwards. Is this true?' Then I told him everything, and he kissed me. 'Go your own way, Isobel,' he said, 'but stay with me while I live. Adelaide has shown me many things which I did not understand. Poor child!' He sent for his lawyers, Arnold, and he made me a poor woman. I am much too poor to be a princess any longer—unless I may be yours."

Then I believed—this, the strangest of all things that may happen to a man. My garden of fancies, which Feurgéres had shown me so well how to cultivate, passed away into the mists. Before the moon rose, Paradise was there.