and strength, "_My dear and only
love_" it sang, as it had sung before; but then it had been a girl's
hope, and now it was a woman's certainty. At the first note, the past
came back to me like yesterday. I saw the moorland gables in the rain,
I heard the swirl of the tempest, I saw the elfin face in the hood
which had cheered the traveller on his way. In that dim light I could
not see the singer, but I needed no vision. The strangeness of the
thing clutched at my heart, for here was the voice which had never been
out of my ears singing again in a land far from the wet heather and the
driving mists of home.

As I sat dazed and dreaming, I knew that a great thing had befallen me.
For me, Andrew Garvald, the prosaic trader, coming out of the darkness
into this strange company, the foundations of the world had been upset.
All my cares and hopes, my gains and losses, seemed in that moment no
better than dust. Love had come to me like a hurricane. From now I had
but the one ambition, to hear that voice say to me and to mean it
truly, "My dear and only love." I knew it was folly and a madman's
dream, for I felt most deeply my common clay. What had I to offer for
the heart of that proud lady? A dingy and battered merchant might as
well enter a court of steel-clad heroes and contend for the love of a
queen. But I was not downcast. I do not think I even wanted to hope. It
was enough to know that so bright a thing was in the world, for at one
stroke my drab horizon seemed to have broadened into the infinite
heavens.

The song ended in another chorus of "Bravas." "Bring twenty candles,
Pompey," my host called out, "and the great punch-bowl. We will pledge
my lady in the old Beverley brew."

Servants set on the table a massive silver dish, into which sundry
bottles of wine and spirits were poured. A mass of cut fruit and sugar
was added, and the whole was set alight, and leaped almost to the
ceiling in a blue flame. Colonel Beverley, with a long ladle, filled
the array of glasses on a salver, which the servants carried round to
the guests. Large branching candelabra had meantime been placed on the
table, and in a glow of light we stood to our feet and honoured the
toast.

As I stood up and looked to the table's end, I saw the dark, restless
eyes and the heavy blue jowl of Governor Nicholson. He saw me, for I
was alone at the bottom end, and when we were seated, he cried out to
me,--

"What news of trade, Mr. Garvald? You're a