one betrayed some
disappointment--"that this parcel belongs to Miss Cara. Having no
address of her own that could be given with safety, she has ordered it
to be sent to me."

"Ben't you even going to open and take a look at it?" asked Archelaus,
as his master slowly replaced it in the box.

"I think not.... Miss Cara will call for it, no doubt, since no doubt
she has been watching for the steamer's arrival."

Archelaus withdrew, reluctantly, not without a sense of expectation
cheated. Nor, as it proved, was his grievance altogether groundless.
The Commandant stood for a minute or so in a brown study, eyeing the
box. Then, his curiosity overmastering him, he reached out and drew the
parcel forth again; turned it over in his hands, and very slowly undid
the strings, which were of green ribbon.

The wrapper fell apart, disclosing a guitar.

The instrument was clearly an old one, and, as clearly of considerable
value, being inlaid with tortoise-shell and mother-of-pearl in delicate
arabesques that must have cost its unknown maker many months, if not
whole years, of patient labour. Its varnish, smooth and transparent as
finest glass, belonged to the same date, and had been laid on, if not
by the same hand, by one no less careful. Something more than a
craftsman's pride had surely inspired the exquisite workmanship, the
deft and joyous pattern that chased itself in and out as though smiling
at its own intricacy. A gift for the artist's mistress, perhaps? Or a
toy for some dead and gone princess?... Yet it had been played upon,
and recently. One or two of its relaxed strings showed evidences of
fraying; and the sender had tied a small packet of new strings around
the neck.

The Commandant, after peering into its pattern for a while, held the
guitar out at arm's length; and, holding it so, broke into a short
laugh--at the thought that this thing had been sent to him.

Yet, here it was. Undoubtedly it belonged to Vashti, and his heart
leapt at the thought that she would be coming to fetch it. For three
days he had been missing her. It seemed that she had chosen to pass out
of his life as suddenly, as waywardly, as she had invaded it; that,
crossing the threshold of Saaron Farm, she had closed its door upon him
and upon a brief episode to be remembered by him henceforth as a dream
only--a too happy dream.

"Ah, had we never met--or, having met,
Had I been wiser or thy heart less wild!"

He had pulled home that