d. "You've been the most
gorgeous brick to me! You've given me happiness and new life. And the
one thing which could make to-day better than it is, would be your
stopping on."

I merely smiled at this, for I'd pointed out that my continued presence
would be misunderstood by the Princess Avalesco, to his disadvantage;
and he reluctantly agreed. So when he had gone to meet his Wonder-of
the-World I continued to pack.

Very likely he would forget such a trifle as the time for my train, I
thought, and if he did turn up it would be at the last minute. I was
surprised, therefore, when, after an hour, I saw him whirling up to the
inn door in the one and only village taxi.

A moment later I was bidding him enter my sitting room. A question
trembled on my lips, but the sight of his face choked it into a gasp.

Terry came in, and flung himself into a chair.

"Good heavens, what's happened?" I ventured.

He did not answer at first. He only stared. Then he found his voice. "I
don't know how to tell you what's happened," he groaned. "You'll despise
me. You'll want to kick me out of your room."

"I won't!" I spoke sharply, to bring him to himself. "What _is_ it?
Hasn't she come?"

"She has come. _That's_ it!"

"What do you mean?"

"Oh, my dear Pal, I--I don't love her any more."

If I hadn't been sitting in a chair I should have collapsed on to
one--or the floor.

"You don't _love_ her?" I faltered.

"No. And that's not all. It's perhaps not even the worst!"

"If you don't tell me at once, I shall scream."

"I hardly know how. I--oh, good lord!--I--I've fallen in love with
someone else."

I must now make a confession as shameful as his. My mind jumped to the
conclusion that Terry Burns was referring to me. I expected him to
explain that, on seeing his ideal after these many years, he found that
after all it was his faithful Pal he loved! I was conceited enough to
think this quite natural, though regrettable, and my first impulse was
to spare us both the pain of such an avowal.

"Good gracious!" I warded him off. "So hearts can really be caught in
the rebound? But what I most want to know is, why have you unloved
Princess Avalesco?"

"It's most horribly disloyal and beastly of me. If you _must_ know, it's
because she's lost her beauty, and has got fat. I wouldn't have believed
that a few years could make such a difference. And she can't be
thirty-five! But she's a mountain. And her hair looks jolly queer. I
th