garden of his heart, and
established itself with its new song and flutterings, its new flight,
its wistful and ever clearer call. That and one moment, a few days later
in her London drawing-room, when he had told her that he WAS coming,
and she did not, could not, he felt, look at him. Queer, that nothing
momentous said, done--or even left undone--had altered all the future!

And so she had gone with her uncle and aunt, under whose wing one might
be sure she would meet with no wayward or exotic happenings. And he had
received from her this little letter:

"HOTEL COEUR D'OR,

"MONTE CARLO.

"MY DEAR MARK,

"We've arrived. It is so good to be in the sun. The flowers are
wonderful. I am keeping Gorbio and Roquebrune till you come.

"Your friend,

"OLIVE CRAMIER."

That letter was the single clear memory he had of the time between her
going and his following. He received it one afternoon, sitting on an old
low garden wall with the spring sun shining on him through apple-trees
in blossom, and a feeling as if all the desire of the world lay before
him, and he had but to stretch out his arms to take it.

Then confused unrest, all things vague; till at the end of his journey
he stepped out of the train at Beaulieu with a furiously beating heart.
But why? Surely he had not expected her to come out from Monte Carlo to
meet him!

A week had gone by since then in one long effort to be with her and
appear to others as though he did not greatly wish to be; two concerts,
two walks with her alone, when all that he had said seemed as nothing
said, and all her sayings but ghosts of what he wished to hear; a week
of confusion, day and night, until, a few minutes ago, her handkerchief
had fallen from her glove on to the dusty road, and he had picked it up
and put it to his lips. Nothing could take away the look she had given
him then. Nothing could ever again separate her from him utterly. She
had confessed in it to the same sweet, fearful trouble that he himself
was feeling. She had not spoken, but he had seen her lips part, her
breast rise and fall. And HE had not spoken. What was the use of words?

He felt in the pocket of his coat. There, against his fingers, was that
wisp of lawn and lace, soft, yet somehow alive; and stealthily he took
it out. The whole of her, with her fragrance, seemed pressed to his face
in the touch of that lawn border, roughened by little white stars. More
secretly than ever he put it back; and