nton Edge on the
north terrace, an apparition so ravishing that Constans must needs
confound it with the flesh-and-blood presentment of his own dear lady.

She was speaking now, almost fretfully. "Is the night never to be gone?
The hangings at the window are so heavy. And where is my father?"

Constans rose and went to the window, intent on flinging it wide open.
But Quinton Edge was there before him and stayed his hand.

"No," he said, and Constans obeyed, being greatly troubled in mind and
uncertain of himself, even as one who wanders in a maze. This Quinton
Edge must have perceived, for he spoke gently, making it plain to him
that this was, indeed, the maid whom they had both loved and not some
disembodied shadow from the underworld. And having come finally to
believe this, Constans was comforted and desired to hear the matter in
full. "Tell me," he said, and Quinton Edge went on:

"It was weeks and weeks that she lay weak and speechless upon a pallet
of dried fern, her only shelter the thatch of a mountain sheepfold.

"There was no one among us who had any knowledge of surgery, and so I
had to be content with simples--cold-water compresses for the wound and
a tea made from the blossoms of the camomile flower to subdue the fever
in the blood. So the days dragged by until the turn for the better came.
Little by little I nursed her back to life again, and in time we came
safely to Doom.

"Arcadia House was a secure hiding-place for my treasure, and during all
these years no one has even guessed at the secret. I had no need to
trust my servants, for they knew nothing; the walls had neither eyes nor
ears, and I kept my own counsel. Until to-day no man's eye but mine has
looked upon her face.

"But even yet you do not wholly understand. Have you forgotten, then,
that the body may be in health and yet the soul be darkened? She had
come back to life, indeed, but it was the life of a butterfly in the
sun, unconscious of aught else than the light and warmth that surrounds
it. For her the past had been sealed; to me the future. Do you
understand now? A woman grown and yet as a new-born babe in heart and
mind. What was there for me to do but to bear my punishment as patiently
as I might, the cup of love ever at my lips, but never to be tasted."

Constans kept silence for a little space. When he spoke it was
haltingly.

"Then you think--you think----"

"She recognized you. Could you not see it--that note in her voice