"Did I not speak the truth? Has not Leicester come to life again?"
She looked at him like one spell-bound. There, standing before her, was Leicester. The huge black beard and moustache were shaven off; he no longer wore the fez which had helped to give him an Eastern appearance. His face was paler. He was stouter than the Leicester of old, and there was still a suggestion of strangeness about him; but the black beard and moustache, the fez, and the Eastern appearance were gone. She could not doubt her eyes.
She gazed at him dumbfounded.
She thought that for the first time in her life she was going to faint. Her blood ran through her veins like streams of ice; her head swam. Presently she mastered herself, however.
"I swore that I would come back again, and I have come; but do not fear, Olive."
Still she stood looking at him with wide-open eyes. She could realise nothing yet. Where was Ricordo, the man she had promised to marry? And why was Leicester there? How had she been deceived? What was the meaning of it all?