When they got back to the house an hour later--and it was an hour which neither of them would ever forget--Sir Everard and the others had not yet returned. They went together into the library, which was one of the cosiest rooms in the house, as befitted the purpose to which it was devoted. A cheerful fire was burning in the grate by way of antidote to the dull November afternoon. "Sit down here," said Dacia to her lover, indicating a big easy-chair, "while I go and take off my outdoor things. I shall not be gone more than a few minutes."
Burgo was quite content to wait. He had won her, she was his, and a few minutes more or less were of no consequence.
Whether he had sat there five minutes or half an hour he could not afterwards have told, so pleasantly had his thoughts been occupied, when the sound of the opening door, which faced him at the other end of the room, caused him to lift his eyes. On the threshold stood Dacia, looking at him with an enigmatic smile. She had changed her heavier outdoor dress for one of pale blue corded silk which fitted her to perfection. While Burgo was still staring at her she dropped him an elaborate curtsey; then, still with that strange smile, she came a little way nearer and dropped him a second curtsey; and then she ran--yes, actually ran--across the room and sank on her knees by the side of his chair. Burgo could hardly believe the evidence of his eyes.
"What has become of your crutch?" he asked in a half-dazed kind of way.
"Gone."
"And--and your----?" He could not bring himself to utter the hateful word.
"My hump, I suppose you mean? Gone too--both gone for ever."
He drew a deep breath. "You altogether bewilder me," he said. "Is there anything real about you?" laying a hand on one of her shoulders--"or may I look to see you vanish piecemeal and leave not a wrack behind?"
She sprang to het feet with a happy musical laugh. "No," she replied, "you will be burdened with the residue of me--and serve you right, after what you said and did this afternoon--for the term of your natural life." And thereupon she proceeded to waltz gravely round him some half-dozen times.
"And to whom are you, or I, or both of us, indebted for this miracle?" he asked when she had brought her gyrations to an end and was again kneeling by the side of his chair.