In a few minutes I rose. I lit a cigarette from the box which Wallace had placed at my elbow, and with a handful more in my pocket I stepped outside. On the lawn under the cedar-tree something was lying--something pink and fluffy, and very soft to the fingers. As I held it at arm's length a faint, familiar perfume stole up from its flouncy depths. The pain was all gone now. I smiled as I looked at it. It was Lady Delahaye's parasol!

I turned it over meditatively. The fancy seized me that it had been left there on purpose--my last chance! Eastford House was barely a mile and a half away--a very reasonable after-dinner stroll. I smiled to myself as I summoned Wallace from the dining-room.

"Take this parasol over to Eastford House as soon as you have served my coffee," I directed. "Lady Delahaye must have left it here this afternoon."

"Very good, sir," Wallace answered, relieving me of my burden and carrying it into the house.

Then I departed on my usual evening pilgrimage. I entered the flower garden by a little iron gate, and walked slowly amongst my roses. Here the air was full of delicate scents--lavender insistent; mignonette faint, but penetrating; homely wall-flowers, sweet even as the roses themselves. Night insects now were buzzing around me; the bushes took to themselves phantasmal shapes; even the path, very narrow and overgrown, was hard to find. I filled my hand with flowers and made my way slowly back to the cedar-tree. The shadows were deeper now. It was the one hour of darkness before the rising of the late moon. I threw myself into a low chair, and the flowers on to the seat which encircled the cedar-tree. Oh, wonderful Feurgeres, who had taught me the sweetness of such moments as this!

Always she came the same way; yet to-night it seemed to me that a startling note of reality heralded her coming. The ghostliness of her movements, that noiseless flitting across the lawn were changed. Almost I could have sworn that the little iron gate had indeed been opened and closed, that real footsteps had fallen lightly enough, but, with actual sound, upon the gravel path, that I could hear the soft swish of a real dress from the slim white figure which came hesitatingly across the lawn. Oh, Feurgeres was a great man! It was a great thing which he had taught me. My pulses were thrilled with expectant joy. Reality itself could be no more real. But to-night--to-night was a triumph indeed! She was dressed differently. She wore a long white travelling cloak, a veil pushed back from her hat. I did not understand. My fancy had never dressed her like this. That little cry, her pause. Had I indeed done greater things than Feurgeres, and summoned to my side real flesh and blood?

"Arnold!"

I gripped the sides of my chair. I felt my breath coming shorter. A cry.

I could not keep it back from my quivering lips.

"Isobel!"

I could not move. I was afraid of what I had done. And then she dropped on her knees by my side, and real arms were about my neck, real kisses were upon my lips. Then I no longer had any fear, for from whatever world she had come the joy of it was like a foretaste of heaven. I drew her to me, held her pa.s.sionately, and I knew that this was no creature of my mind's fashioning, but a live woman, whose heart beat so wildly against my own....

"It was all Adelaide," she murmured presently. "She brought me your book, and afterwards we talked. She was alone with my grandfather--and then he sent for me. I was afraid, for this was in his last days. Shall I tell you what he said, Arnold?"

"Yes," I answered, tightening my grasp upon her. "Go on talking!" For I was fighting still for belief.

"He took my hand quite calmly, and I knew at once that I had nothing to fear. 'Isobel,' he said, 'they tell me that you have your mother's blood in your veins, that freedom means more to you than ambition, that you are a woman first and a Waldenburg afterwards. Is this true?' Then I told him everything, and he kissed me. 'Go your own way, Isobel,' he said, 'but stay with me while I live. Adelaide has shown me many things which I did not understand. Poor child!' He sent for his lawyers, Arnold, and he made me a poor woman. I am much too poor to be a princess any longer--unless I may be yours."

Then I believed--this, the strangest of all things that may happen to a man. My garden of fancies, which Feurgeres had shown me so well how to cultivate, pa.s.sed away into the mists. Before the moon rose, Paradise was there.

THE END

THE NOVELS OF E. PHILLIPS OPPENHEIM

A Prince of Sinners Anna the Adventuress The Master Mummer A Maker of History Mysterious Mr. Sabin The Yellow Crayon The Betrayal The Traitors Enoch Strone A Sleeping Memory The Malefactor A Daughter of the Marionis The Mystery of Mr. Bernard Brown A Lost Leader The Great Secret The Avenger As a Man Lives The Missioner The Governors The Man and His Kingdom A Millionaire of Yesterday The Long Arm of Mannister Jeanne of the Marshes The Ill.u.s.trious Prince The Lost Amba.s.sador Berenice The Moving Finger

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