“You—you haven’t found her!” gasped the Doctor, quite beside himself with surprise.
“Precisely,” the Master assured him, with his face beaming.
The Doctor wrung his hand. “Franz, my old friend,” he cried, “words cannot tell you how glad I am! Where—who is she?”
“Mine friend,” returned the Master, “it is you who are one blundering old fellow. After taking to yourself the errand of telling her that I loved her still, you did not see fit to come back to me with the news that she also cared. Thereby much time has been wrongly spent.”
The Doctor grew hot and cold by turns. “You don’t mean—” he cried. “Not—not Mrs. Irving!”
“Who else?” asked the Master, serenely. “In all the world is she not the most lovely lady? Who that has seen her does not love her, and why not I?”
Doctor Brinkerhoff sank into a chair, very much excited.
“It is one astonishment also to me,” the Master went on. “I cannot believe that the dear God has been so good, and I must always be pinching mineself to be sure that I do not sleep. It is most wonderful.”
“It is, indeed,” the Doctor returned.
“But see how it has happened. Only now can I understand. In the beginning, mine heart is very hurt, but out of mine hurt there comes the power to make mineself one great artist. It was mine Cremona that made the parting, because I am so foolish that I must go in her house to look at it. It was mine Cremona that took her to me the last time, when she gave it to me. ‘Franz,’ she says, ‘if you take this, you will not forget me, and it is mine to do with what I please.’