"No—no!" Terry protested. "I almost wish it were like that. It would be humiliating, but simple. The thing that's happened—this lightning stroke—is far from simple. I may have gone mad. Or, I may have fallen in love with a ghost."
Relieved of my first suspicion, I pressed him to tell the story in as few words as possible.
It seemed that Terry had arrived at Dun Moat before the Princess; and to pass the time he began strolling about the gardens. His walk took him all round the rambling old house, and something made him glance suddenly up at one of the windows. There was no sound; yet it was as if a voice had called. And at the window stood a girl.
She was looking down at him. And though the window was high and overhung with ivy, Terry's eyes met hers. It was, he repeated, "a lightning stroke!"
"She was rather like what Margaret Revell used to be years ago, when I was a boy and fell in love with her," Terry went on. "I mean, she was that type. And though she looked even lovelier than Margaret in those days—lots lovelier, and younger, too—I thought it must be the Princess. You see, there didn't seem to be any one else it could be. And at that distance, behind window glass, and after all these years, how could I be sure? I said to myself, 'So the auto must have come and I've missed hearing it. She's making her tour of the house without me!' I couldn't stand that, so I sprinted for the door. And I was just in time to meet the motor drawing up in front of it. Great Heligoland! The shock I got when—at that moment of all others, my eyes dazzled with a dream—I saw the real Princess! Somehow I blundered through the meeting with her, and didn't utterly disgrace myself. But I made an excuse about taking a friend to a train, and bolted as soon as I could. I didn't come straight here. I went back to the window where I'd seen the face—the vision—the ghost—whatever it was. No one was there. A curtain was pulled across. And I remembered then that I'd always seen it covered. Say, Princess, do you think I'm going mad—just when I hoped I was cured? Was it the spirit of Margaret Revell's lost youth I saw, or—or——"
"At which window was the—er—Being?" I cut in sharply.
"It was close under the twisted chimney."
"Ah! In the wing where the Scarletts are: the suite of the garden court!"
"Yes. I forgot when I thought it must be Margaret, that the window was in the Scarletts' wing. Of course, Margaret couldn't have gone there. Princess, you're afraid to tell me, but you do think I'm off my head!"
"I don't," I assured him. "Just what I think I hardly know myself. But I shouldn't wonder if you'd stumbled on to the key of the mystery."