he caught
her breath then; she touched her lips with a dainty tongue as though
they had gone dry of a sudden. Involuntarily she stepped toward him,
that single pace which she had fallen away. And above the tumult of
her own senses she heard herself trying to laugh and realized how
unsteady the effort was.

"Then you do forgive me?" she breathed. "Do I--pass inspection? Do
you like me--in my masquerade?"

Steve answered her last question first and, lips parted, she listened,
conscious of nothing save the words he was speaking.

"There was never need of a fairy-godmother for you," he told her, his
voice grave. "There was never need of a transforming miracle; you have
been that, always, yourself. And you are not permitted to ask
forgiveness from me, nor pardon. Men do not admit that there can be
need of that, where they have worshiped, as long as I have worshiped
you. You knew I was coming. . . . I've been coming ten years now.
But you can never know, either, how long ten years can be."

The words were blurred as a far-off echo in her ears. She started to
speak, but all that she would have said caught in her throat and hurt
her, and only her unsteady breath came from parted lips. Her head
drooped forward again, while the small fist twisted and searched and
found and clasped tight one finger of the hand that held it. She
realized that his free arm was lifted toward her. As she started
forward, her ankles became entangled in the soft pile of satin at her
feet, and she stopped to free them--and started forward again. But
when, at her inarticulate effort at speech, he bent his head to her
swiftly upflung face, her whole slender body tightened at the rough
contact of blue flannel against her cheek. Almost before they held her
she struggled madly from the circle of his arms. White of face, white
of lip, she broke away from him and darted through the gap in the
hedge, only to shrink back against him in panic the next instant before
the black shape upon a blacker horse, between her and the lights.

He was gazing in their direction--the man upon the horse. He was
laughing softly. And when he thrust back the black cowl that hid his
face and began to speak, Stephen O'Mara recognized that terribly pale,
terribly drawn face. Garry Devereau rocked a little in the saddle and
waved a gracefully unsteady hand.

"Blessings, my children!" he called to the two in the shadow, and his
tongue was not thick, but only wav