And then Croft comprehended all the sweetness of her planning. And drew her into his arms and held her—held her until it seemed that all else faded away and there was naught in the world save their two selves.
"My bride," he said; "my—bride."
CHAPTER XXI
LOST CONFIDENCES
This is the story told me by the lips of the sorry wreck on the bed, the spirit that looked out of its eyes—Croft's spirit, as I have every reason to believe, since he so frankly admitted what he had done, and because every detail of the narrative itself showed complete familiarity with the events embraced in the story Croft in his own earthly body had told me before.
"And that's all—or practically all—Murray," he said at last with a sigh and laid his cigar aside. "I've done a lot of things since then, and Tamarizia bids fair to develop into a very up-to-date nation; only I needed information concerning a lot of things in regard to which I was lacking. It was to gain this information I reversed my first experiment in changing bodies. Will you help me to what I need?"
"I'll help you, of course," I told him; "but what about the Mazzerian invasion?"
He gave me a glance, and the light in his eye was quietly amused.
"Lord, man, I was forgetting. To me it seemed that the moment in which I knew Naia mine was the logical ending. But we beat them. Hadn't I gained what I went to Palos to attain? Small chance that Zollaria's blue rabble could accomplish the revenge for which she schemed.