"It's no use trying any longer, Lloyd," he said abruptly. "I can't give you up. The golden wedding to-day was too much for me." He took a step nearer. "Dear, isn't there anything I could do to make myself worthier in your sight? In the old days knights could go out and prove their valour and fealty. Couldn't you give me some such chance? Set me a task? I'd go to the world's end to do it!"
Lloyd did not answer for a moment. Leaning against the trunk of the gnarled locust, she stood idly tracing the outline of the four-leaf clover that he had cut beside the date the last time they measured there. Then she said in a low tone:
"Yes, you can bring me the diamond leaf that we've talked about so often. By that token you'd prove that you were not only a true knight, but that all these yeahs you've been my prince in disguise."
He smiled ruefully, thinking she had purposely set him a hopeless task. They had read the legend together, and he knew full well that Abdallah found the diamond leaf of happiness only in Paradise, but he took out his watch and opened the back of the case, saying hopefully, "My lucky charm has never failed me yet, how long will you give me to find it?"
She held out her hand for the little talisman, the four-leaf clover she had given him so many years ago, but as he picked it up, the dry leaves crumbled to dust at his touch, and only one fell unbroken into her outstretched palm.
"My good omen has failed me when I needed it most!" he said bitterly, but Lloyd answered shyly, "No, don't you see? This is the fo'th leaf. You have brought me what I asked for."
For an instant he stood there, an incredulous joy dawning in his face, then grasping the little hand that closed over the clover, he asked wonderingly, "And my unworthy shoulders really fit your royal mantle now, dear? You are sure?"
She looked up at him then, not a doubt in her trusting face as she slowly made answer, "Yes, Rob, 'as the falcon's feathahs fit the falcon!'"
And then the old locusts, looking down on the ending of a story that they had watched from its beginning, stopped their swaying for a space, with a soft "Sh!" each to each as one lays finger on lip in holy places.