“Mr. Arburton is here?”
“No, ma’am. He started to go up to the Heights on business, and said he should stay to lunch at his house.”
That explained everything. The house by the lumber yards was simply a fancy of her disordered brain. She would go at once to their villa-home on the Heights. On arriving there she was not able to find it. Now thoroughly alarmed, she decided to go to her mother’s. Both her homes had disappeared, perhaps forever. She put her hand to her fevered brow. It was icy cold. She trembled as if chilled with terror.
“To think that beautiful home was all a wild fancy—to think I’ve lost that dear, homely, lovely, hideous house by the lumber yards. I fairly loved it. I’ll never stir out of it again—not even to find that colonial villa. And my husband, too,—he may be a fancy—a mere phantom—”
She looked at her wedding ring.
“No. I suppose he is real—”
She stood silent and tearful, looking off over the vast prospect spread out below her. The avenue ended at the very edge of the bluff and gave a magnificent view over the river and valley below—the very view she had dreamed she saw from that chamber window—
Suddenly a picturesque chimney appeared above the edge of the bluff. Then two pretty finials of wrought iron. Then a red roof appeared. Was she dreaming—or—? A number of people on the sidewalk stopped to view the remarkable spectacle. She heard a policeman remark aloud:
“The quare house is going on duty agin.”
The colonial villa stood before her. The front door opened and her husband appeared.