The fifties mounted into the sixties, but there was no telegram. The tension became intolerable. Again and again I felt tempted to fly, but a lingering sense of honor kept me to my post. On the sixty-first day my patience was rewarded. Sitting at my window one morning I saw a telegraph-boy sauntering along. He reached the gate. He paused. I rushed to the door and down the steps, seized the envelope and tore it frantically open.
"Coming, but suppose all over.—Arthur."
I leaned on the gate, half fainting. When I went to my room, I read the wire again and noted it had been handed in at Liverpool. In four or five hours at most I should cease to belong to myself. I communicated the news to the Honorable Miss Primpole who congratulated me cordially. She made no secret of her joy that the nobleman had won. For my part I was still torn with conflicting emotions. Now that I knew it was to be the one, I hankered after the other. Yet in the heart of the storm there was peace in the thought that the long suspense was over. I ordered a magnificent repast to be laid for the home-coming voyager, which would also serve to celebrate our nuptials. The Honorable Miss Primpole consented to grace the board and the butler to surrender the choicest vintages garnered in my father's cellar.
Two hours and a half dragged by; then there came another wire—I opened it with some curiosity, but as my eye caught the words I almost swooned with excitement. It ran:
"Arrived, but presume too late.—Athelstan."
With misty vision I strove to read the place of despatch. It was Dover. A great wave of hope surged in my bosom. My Saga-hero might yet arrive in time. Half frenziedly I turned over the leaves of Bradshaw. No, after sending that wire, he would just have missed the train to Victoria! Cruel! Cruel! But stay! there was another route. He might have booked for Charing Cross. Yes! Heaven be praised, if he did that, he would just catch a train. And of course he would do that—surely he would have planned out every possibility while crossing the Channel, have arranged for all—my Captain, my blue-eyed Berserker! But then Lord Arthur had had two and a half hours' start.—I turned to Liverpool and essayed to discover whether that was sufficient to balance the difference of the two distances from London. Alas! my head swam before I had travelled two stations. There were no less than four routes to Euston, to St. Pancras, to King's Cross, to Paddington! Still I made out that if he had kept his head very clear, and been very, very fortunate, he might just get level with the Captain. But then on a longer route the chances of accidental delays were more numerous. On the whole the odds were decidedly in favor of the Captain. But one thing was certain—that they would both arrive in time for supper. I ordered an additional cover to be laid, then I threw myself upon a couch and tried to read. But I could not. Terrible as was the strain, my thoughts refused to be distracted. The minutes crawled along—gradually peace came back as I concluded that only by a miracle could Lord Arthur win. At last I jumped up with a start, for the shades of evening were falling and my toilette was yet to make. I dressed myself in a dainty robe of white, trimmed with sprays of wild flowers, and I stuck the white rose in my hair—the symbol that I was yet unasked in wedlock, the white star of hope to the way-worn wanderer! I did my best to be the fairest sight the travellers should have seen in all the world.
The Honorable Miss Primpole started when she saw me. "What have you been doing to yourself, Princess?" she said. "You're lovelier than I ever dreamed."
And indeed the crisis had lent a flush to my cheek and a flash to my eye which I would not willingly repay. My bosom rose and fell with excitement. In half an hour I should be in my Saga-hero's arms! I went down to the ground-floor front and seated myself at the open window and gazed at the Square and the fiery streaks of sunset in the sky. The Honorable Miss Primpole lay upon an ottoman, less excited. Every now and again she asked,
"Do you see anything, Princess?"
"Nothing," I answered.