Truly my feet trod a path of "faerie," carpeted with soft mosses, a path winding along beside a river of shadows, on whose dark tide stars were floating. I walked slowly, breathing the fragrance of the night and watching the great silver moon creeping slowly up the spangled sky. So I presently came to the "blasted oak." The hole in the trunk needed little searching for. I remembered it well enough, and thrusting in my hand, drew out a folded paper. Holding this close to my eyes, I managed with no little difficulty to decipher this message:
"Don't go unkel dick bekors Auntie lisbeth wants you and i want you to. I heard her say so to herself in the libree and she was crying to, and didn't see me there but i was. And she said O Dick i want you so, out loud bekors she didn't no I was there. And i no she was crying bekors i saw the tiers. And this is true on my onner.
"Sined,
"Yore true frend and Knight,
"REGINALD AUGUSTUS."
A revulsion of feeling swept over me as I read. Ah! if only I could believe she had said such words--my beautiful, proud Lisbeth.
Alas! dear Imp, how was it possible to believe you? And because I knew it could not possibly be true, and because I would have given my life to know that it was true, I began to read the note all over again.
Suddenly I started and looked round; surely that was a sob! But the moon's level rays served only to show the utter loneliness about me. It was imagination, of course, and yet it had sounded very real.
And she said, "Oh, Dick, I want you so!"
The river lapped softly against the bank, and somewhere above my head the leaves rustled dismally.