“No,” she said, after a moment’s hesitation, “I must plead as Desdemona did about hers, it disappeared mysteriously. I cannot produce it for you, my lord.”
“Ah, now I should get as mad as any Othello,” said he, “but on second thoughts I will refrain.”
“Listen, dear Julian,” she said. “I am resolved to confess all to you, though you may think me a bit of a fool. Listen: on Christmas night I went to my room and seated myself before the fire, thinking of you, dearest,—your portrait was in my hands, and on the table were some of the treasures your hands had touched, the handkerchief among them. Then I heard—I seemed to hear—no, I prefer to tell the truth—I actually heard the sound of a pebble flung against my window. I looked out, I saw you on the drive, and I went downstairs and opened the hall door for you. You were wounded just where you were actually wounded—and I bound up your arm with the handkerchief and went to bed. In the morning there was no sign of your having been here, but—but—the handkerchief was gone. Don’t think me a goose.”
“A goose? Heavens! a goose!” he cried. “Listen to my story, dear. When I was wounded in that scrimmage, I fainted through loss of blood, and when I recovered my senses I went in search of the ambulance tent. It was late before I came across a transport waggon, which had been disabled by a shell. I crept inside it, but found nothing there, and I was dying of thirst. And then—then—you came to me with bandages and water—plenty of water in the cut-glass carafe that stands on the sideboard. You lighted a candle, bound up my arm, and left me comfortably asleep, where I was found by our ambulance in the morning. Yes, that’s the truth, and that is why I sent you the telegram, and this is the handkerchief with the stains upon it still.”
He drew the lace handkerchief out of his pocket and handed it to her. She gazed at it, but he only laughed and said—
“I told you ‘there’s magic in the web of it.’”
THE BASELESS FABRIC
Tis sorry that you’ll be to hear that ould Denny Callan is dead, sir,” said the station-master—he was, strictly speaking, the junction-master—at Mallow, to whom I had confided my hopes of eventually reaching my destination at St Barter’s, in the same county. He had been courteously voluble, and sometimes even explicit, in giving me advice on this subject; he also took an optimistic view of the situation. All things considered, and with a moderate share of good luck, I might reasonably hope to reach St Barter’s House within a couple of hours. That point, which was becoming one of great interest to me, being settled, he thought that he was entitled to assume that I should be grieved to hear of the death of “ould Denny Callan.” He assumed too much. I had never heard the name of the lamented Mr Callan. I could not pretend to be overwhelmed with grief at the news that some one was dead whom I had never heard of being alive.