promise you that I will not intrude again
into this Paradise of wood and stone. Give me a cigarette to keep off
these flies, and take me down to the carriage. Thanks! If one might
venture upon a prophecy, my dear Arnold, I think that I can see your
fate very clearly written. I do not even need your hand to read it."

"Would the spell," I asked, "be broken if I shared the knowledge?"

"Not in the least," she answered, with a hard little laugh. "You will
become one of those half-mad sort of creatures whom people call cranks,
or you will marry your housekeeper. In either case you will deserve your
fate."

So Lady Delahaye drove away down the white dusty road, and I walked back
to the study from whence her coming had brought me. As I sat down to my
interrupted work I smiled. How little she understood!

I wrote till seven o'clock. Punctually at that hour there was a discreet
knock at the door, and my servant reminded me that it was time to
change. At a quarter before eight I strolled into the garden and
selected a piece of heliotrope for the buttonhole of my dinner coat. A
few minutes later my dinner was served.

My table was a small round one set in front of the open French windows.
Looking a little to the right I could see the extent of my domain--a low
laurel hedge, a sloping field beyond, in which my two Alderneys were
standing almost knee-deep amongst the buttercups; a ring fence, a
paddock, and, beyond, the road. To the left were my gardens, the
sweetness of which came stealing through the window with the very
faintest breath of the slowly moving air, bordered by that ancient red
brick wall, mellowed and crumbling with the sun and west winds of
generations, and in front of me my lawn and the cedar-tree under which
Lady Delahaye had sat an hour or so ago and prophesied evil things. My
lips parted into a smile as I thought of her words. Did she indeed think
me a creature so weak as to pile gloom on the top of sorrow, to shut my
eyes to all the joys of life, because supreme happiness was denied me,
to play skittles with my self-respect, and--marry a kitchen-maid? I, who
had turned over great pages in the book of life! I, who had known
Feurgeres! Wallace had left the room for a moment, and I raised my glass
full of clear amber wine, and drank silently my evening toast. I drank
to the memory of the greatest love I had ever known, to the man whose
strong and beautiful life had taught me how to fashion my own. Perhaps
m