“Yes, speak of it—to me,” said Mariana gently.
“It is a very short story, Mariana—almost the same, excepting the end; for, three years afterwards, once more my butterfly rose out of the reeds in almost exactly the same spot, and once more it coquetted with me for miles, and once more it dashed into that little churchyard ... but this time it did not vanish into the church, but went from grave to grave, as you say the soul perhaps wanders from star to star, and presently it stopped at one of the graves. I thought that now it was surely mine, and raised my net to strike, but, as I did so, I read a name upon a stone....”
In the darkness Mariana reached out her hand and took Laleham’s, and, after a silence, she said:
“I know the grave,” and, after another silence, she said:
“I have heard that she was very beautiful.”
Then the two sat on, saying no more in the starlight, and all the while, though neither knew of it till they returned to the library lamps, a little blue butterfly had been hiding in Mariana’s hair.