and her voice dropped, tiny, into the
stillness.

"I guessed you were Farrell Wand."

XXV

THE LAST ENCHANTMENT

The tallest eucalyptus top was all of the garden that was touched with
sun when Flora came out of the house in the morning. She stood a space
looking at that little cone of brightness far above all the other trees,
swaying on the delicate sky. It was not higher lifted nor brighter
burnished than her spirit then. Shorn of her locket chain, her golden
pouch, free of her fears, she poised looking over the garden. Then with
a leap she went from the veranda to the grass and, regardless of dew,
skimmed the lawn for the fountain and the rose garden.

There she saw him--the one man--already awaiting her. He stood back to
back with a mossy nymph languishing on her pedestal, and Flora hoped by
running softly to steal up behind him, and make of the helpless marble
lady a buffer between their greetings. But either she underestimated the
nymph's bulk, or forgot how invariably direct was the man's attack; for
turning and seeing her, without any circumvention, with one sweep of his
long arm, he included the statue in his grasp of her. With a laugh of
triumph he drew her out of her concealment.

To her the splendor of skies and trees and morning light melted into
that wonderful moment. For the first time in weary days she had all to
give, nothing to fear or withhold. She was at peace. She was ready to
stop, to stand here in her life for always--here in the glowing garden
with him, and their youth. But he was impatient. He did not want to
loiter in the morning. He was hot to hurry on out of the present which
was so mysterious, so untried to her, as if these ecstasies had no
mystery to him but their complete fulfilment. He filled her with a
trembling premonition of the undreamed-of things that were waiting for
her in the long aisle of life.

"Come, speak," he urged, as they paced around the fountain. "When am I
to take you away?"

She hung back in fear of her very eagerness to go, to plunge head over
ears into life in a strange country with a stranger. "Next month," she
ventured.

"Next month! why not next week? why not to-morrow?" he declared with
confidence. "Who is to say no? I am the head of my house and you have no
one but me. To be sure, there is Mrs. Herrick--excellent woman. But she
has her own daughters to look out for, and," he added slyly, "much as
she thinks of you, I doubt if she thinks you a g