r eternal friend, and then she
got up to steal noiselessly to bed.

But as she was opening the secret door, to have one more look at the
sky, after she had replaced Aphrodite in the bag, it seemed as though
her lover's voice called her in anguish through the night: "Halcyone!"
and again, "Halcyone! My love!"

She stopped, petrified with emotion, and then rushed back onto the
terrace. But all was silence; and, wild with some mad fear, she set off
hurriedly, never stopping until she came to their trysting tree. But
here there was silence also, only the nightingale throbbed from the
copse, while the faint rustle of soft zephyrs disturbed the leaves.

And Jeb Hart and his comrade saw the tall white figure from their
hiding-place in the low overgrown brushwood, and Gubbs crossed himself
again, for whether she were living or some wraith they were never really
sure.

At the moment when Halcyone opened the secret door, John Derringham was
just recovering consciousness in a luxurious bed at Wendover Park,
whither he had been carried when accidentally found by the keepers in
their rounds about eight o'clock. It was several days since they had
visited this part of the park, and they had lit upon him by a fortunate
chance. He had lain there in the haw-haw, unconscious all that day,
while his poor little lady-love waited for him at the oak gate, and was
now in a sorry plight indeed, as Arabella Clinker bent over him,
awaiting anxiously the verdict of the doctors who had been fetched by
motor from Upminster. Would he live or die?

Her employer had had a bad attack of nerves upon hearing of the
accident, and was now reclining upon her boudoir sofa, quite prostrated
and in a high state of agitation until she should know the worst--or
best.

Arabella listened intently. Surely the patient was whispering something?
Yes, she caught the words.

"Halcyone!" he murmured, and again, "Halcyone--my love!" and then he
closed his eyes once more.

He would live, the physicians said after some hours of doubt--with very
careful nursing. But the long exposure in the wet, twenty-four hours at
least, with that wound in the head and the broken ankle, was a very
serious matter, and absolute quiet and the most highly skilled attention
would be necessary.

It was Arabella who made all the sensible, kind arrangements that night,
and herself sat up with the poor suffering patient until the nurses
could come. But it was Mrs. Cricklander who, dignif