sentimental, but not passionate; the
life to be evolved by will from the tangle of bruised hopes and hot
desires. The life----

I set down my glass empty. The last drop had tasted like vinegar. Always
one has to fight, and for a while I sat in silence before my table piled
now with dishes of fruit. My hands gripped the sides of my chair, my
eyes were fixed upon a twinkling light which had shot out from the
distant hillside. Always one has to fight for the things worth
having--and the pain soon passes.

In a few minutes I rose. I lit a cigarette from the box which Wallace
had placed at my elbow, and with a handful more in my pocket I stepped
outside. On the lawn under the cedar-tree something was lying--something
pink and fluffy, and very soft to the fingers. As I held it at arm's
length a faint, familiar perfume stole up from its flouncy depths. The
pain was all gone now. I smiled as I looked at it. It was Lady
Delahaye's parasol!

I turned it over meditatively. The fancy seized me that it had been left
there on purpose--my last chance! Eastford House was barely a mile and a
half away--a very reasonable after-dinner stroll. I smiled to myself as
I summoned Wallace from the dining-room.

"Take this parasol over to Eastford House as soon as you have served my
coffee," I directed. "Lady Delahaye must have left it here this
afternoon."

"Very good, sir," Wallace answered, relieving me of my burden and
carrying it into the house.

Then I departed on my usual evening pilgrimage. I entered the flower
garden by a little iron gate, and walked slowly amongst my roses. Here
the air was full of delicate scents--lavender insistent; mignonette
faint, but penetrating; homely wall-flowers, sweet even as the roses
themselves. Night insects now were buzzing around me; the bushes took to
themselves phantasmal shapes; even the path, very narrow and overgrown,
was hard to find. I filled my hand with flowers and made my way slowly
back to the cedar-tree. The shadows were deeper now. It was the one hour
of darkness before the rising of the late moon. I threw myself into a
low chair, and the flowers on to the seat which encircled the
cedar-tree. Oh, wonderful Feurgeres, who had taught me the sweetness of
such moments as this!

Always she came the same way; yet to-night it seemed to me that a
startling note of reality heralded her coming. The ghostliness of her
movements, that noiseless flitting across the lawn were changed. Almost
I