ink it must have come out with some illness, and she's got on her head
one of those things you call a combination."

"We don't! We call it a transformation," I corrected him in haste. "Oh,
this is awful! Think of the fortune you've spent to offer Dun Moat to
your lady-love for a few weeks, only to discover that she _isn't_ your
lady-love! What a waste! I suppose now you'll go up to London----"

"No," said Terry, "I shall stay here. And--I can't feel that the money's
wasted in taking Dun Moat. Just seeing such a face as I've seen is worth
every sovereign."

"Face?" I echoed.

"Yes. I told you I'd fallen in love. You must have guessed it was with
someone at Dun Moat, as I've been nowhere else."

I hadn't guessed that. But I wasn't going to let him know that my
guesses had come home to roost! "It can't be Mrs. Dobell," I said,
"because you've seen her before, and she's old. Has the Princess got a
beautiful Cinderella for a maid, and----"

"No--no!" Terry protested. "I almost wish it were like that. It would be
humiliating, but simple. The thing that's happened--this lightning
stroke--is far from simple. I may have gone mad. Or, I may have fallen
in love with a ghost."

Relieved of my first suspicion, I pressed him to tell the story in as
few words as possible.

It seemed that Terry had arrived at Dun Moat before the Princess; and to
pass the time he began strolling about the gardens. His walk took him
all round the rambling old house, and something made him glance suddenly
up at one of the windows. There was no sound; yet it was as if a voice
had called. And at the window stood a girl.

She was looking down at him. And though the window was high and overhung
with ivy, Terry's eyes met hers. It was, he repeated, "a lightning
stroke!"

"She was rather like what Margaret Revell used to be years ago, when I
was a boy and fell in love with her," Terry went on. "I mean, she was
that type. And though she looked even lovelier than Margaret in those
days--_lots_ lovelier, and younger, too--I thought it must be the
Princess. You see, there didn't seem to be any one else it could be. And
at that distance, behind window glass, and after all these years, how
could I be sure? I said to myself, 'So the auto must have come and I've
missed hearing it. She's making her tour of the house without me!' I
couldn't stand that, so I sprinted for the door. And I was just in time
to meet the motor drawing up in front of it. Great Heligo