e married.
Being so fair and sweet she would surely not have lacked for suitors,
nor could it be believed that she had worn her life away mourning over
the lost love of her youth.

Now the Lodge was before me; it had changed no whit except that the ivy
and creepers on its front had grown higher, to the roof indeed, and
I could see that people lived in the house, for it was well kept, and
smoke hung above the chimneys. The gate was locked, and there were no
serving men about, for night fell fast, and all had ceased from their
labour. Leaving the house on the right I passed round it to the stables
that are at the back near the hillside garden, but here the gate was
locked also, and I dismounted not knowing what to do. Indeed I was so
unmanned with fear and doubt that for a while I seemed bewildered, and
leaving the horse to crop the grass where he stood, I wandered to the
foot of the church path and gazed up the hill as though I waited for the
coming of one whom I should meet.

'What if they were all dead, what if SHE were dead and gone?' I buried
my face in my hands and prayed to the Almighty who had protected me
through so many years, to spare me this last bitterness. I was crushed
with sorrow, and I felt that I could bear no more. If Lily were lost to
me also, then I thought that it would be best that I should die, since
there was nothing left for which I cared to live.

Thus I prayed for some while, trembling like a leaf, and when I looked
up again, ere I turned to seek tidings from those that dwelt in the
house, whoever they might be, the twilight had fallen completely, and
lo! nightingales sang both far and near. I listened to their song, and
as I listened, some troubled memory came back to me that at first I
could not grasp. Then suddenly there rose up in my mind a vision of the
splendid chamber in Montezuma's palace in Tenoctitlan, and of myself
sleeping on a golden bed, and dreaming on that bed. I knew it now, I was
the god Tezcat, and on the morrow I must be sacrificed, and I slept in
misery, and as I slept I dreamed. I dreamed that I stood where I stood
this night, that the scent of the English flowers was in my nostrils as
it was this night, and that the sweet song of the nightingales rang in
my ears as at this present hour. I dreamed that as I mused and listened
the moon came up over the green ash and oaks, and lo! there she shone. I
dreamed that I heard a sound of singing on the hill--

But now I awoke f