“There will never be another night like this!” I said. “Never, never can there be another night like this!”
“Dear garden!” my companion murmured, and threw a kiss to it.
“Then you will remember it, too?” I asked, scarce breathing.
“Oh, yes,” she answered, very softly. “It is the place where I have gained a—friend!”
It was not the word I had hoped for, but the most, no doubt, I could expect. I went on beside her, my head bowed. A friend! A friend! Ah, it was something more than that my heart desired.
At last we came to the broad flight of steps which led upward to the terrace.
“I must leave you here, monsieur,” she said, and mounted a step or two, then turned and looked down at me with eyes that glowed and glowed with a strange inward light.
A mad impulse seized me to fling honor to the winds, to throw myself upon my knees, to implore her to flee with me somewhere—anywhere—to a wilderness, a desert island, where there would be only we and our love.
Perhaps she guessed my thought, for she smiled tremulously and held out her hand to me very tenderly.
“Take courage, my friend,” she said. “There is a voice speaking to me also. It tells me that fate will not be so cruel as you think; it promises that your future shall, after all, be happy.”