At that he gripped me in his arms and kissed me till in the tumult of my heart I could not hear the music of the mocking-bird.
“My heart has always known you for the lovely and holy thing you are,” he told me later; “it knew you in spite of my bewildered wits.”
“Did it know me that night in the arbor?” I asked him shakily. And he was silent. I had to forgive him because he made no attempt to defend himself. He sat there, miserable and silent, letting my hand go, till I gave it back to him of my own free will, forgivingly.
And what more is there to tell?
Not long after the trial, Mrs. Brane left “The Pines” to marry Dr. Haverstock, who, to my great surprise, had been her suitor all these months. And as for Mary, she is living with Paul and me, and is the happiest of faithful nurses to our child. Paul's and my daughter is a little fairy, with demure gray eyes, and the blackest hair that I have ever seen.
And the treasure, the robe and crown which so bedazzled the weak head of Theodore Brane, and which drew Madame across the ocean to her death, they are again in the crypt of the cathedral at Moscow, where there stands, glittering once more between her golden candlesticks, our Holy and Beloved Lady of the Jewels.