“My precious Lion, you have at last come back to me!” exclaimed Gwen, as she threw herself on her knees and kissed Lionel’s hand.
“Ah! I knew it was all true,” wearily said Lord Somerville, “for you call me as she did—Lion. But tell me, dearest, when did all these clothes and curtains come back?”
“My poor darling, these clothes, these carpets never disappeared. It has been a long dream—a long and beautiful dream.”
“All a dream—then Danford, the witty and faithful guide—?”
“Yes, a dream, my precious Lionel.”
“And all is as it was before that storm? But you, Gwen, you are not the same, you are the Una of my dream; I see it in your radiant expression. Tell me, dearest, how did it happen? Did I really shoot myself?”
“Yes, dear—but to go back to that night. As you remember, the storm was of such a nature as to prevent our reaching Richmond Park, and we turned back to town as fast as ever we could to Hertford Street. At about two o’clock in the morning father was roused by his valet, who told him that Temple had come to say he had found you in the library, shot through the head.”
“And you—?” Poor Gwen evaded the searching look of her lover by burying her face in the counterpane.
“My father never told me what had happened until next day.” She looked up at Lionel. “Do not ask me if I felt for you; I do not know, and I do not wish to remember. I only know that two days after, as I rode back through the Park, I looked in to inquire how you were. I came into this room, and found the surgeon, who told me your nurse had to leave, for she had been suddenly taken ill; and I sat down by your bed, just as I was in my riding-habit, to watch you until another nurse had been found.”
“Poor Gwen, it was a horrid ordeal, for you always hated sickness and loathed nursing.”