and
silently vanished. Seeing these, I knew that their strange protector
must also have won through safe.

"_Ach, Gott! Gesegneter Gott!_ I see you again, my friend!" Thus the old
Doctor.

"But tell me," I interrupted, "where is the mistress of this house, the
Baroness von Ritz?"

He looked at me in his mild way. "You mean my daughter Helena?"

Now at last I smiled. His daughter! This at least was too incredible! He
turned and reached behind him to a little table. He held up before my
eyes my little blanket clasp of shell. Then I knew that this last and
most impossible thing also was true, and that in some way these two had
found each other! But _why_? What could he now mean?

"Listen now," he began, "and I shall tell you. I wass in the street one
day. When I walk alone, I do not much notice. But now, as I walk, before
my eyes on the street, I see what? This--this, the Tah Gook! At first, I
see nothing but it. Then I look up. Before me iss a woman, young and
beautiful. Ach! what should I do but take her in my arms!"

"It was she; it was--"

"My daughter! Yess, my daughter. It iss _Helena_! I haf not seen her for
many years, long, cruel years. I suppose her dead. But now there we
were, standing, looking in each other's eyes! We see there--Ach, Gott!
what do we not see? Yet in spite of all, it wass Helena But she shall
tell you." He tottered from the room.

I heard his footsteps pass down the hall. Then softly, almost silently,
Helena von Ritz again stood before me. The light from a side window fell
upon her face. Yes, it was she! Her face was thinner now, browner even
than was its wont. Her hair was still faintly sunburned at its
extremities by the western winds. Yet hers was still imperishable youth
and beauty.

I held out my hands to her. "Ah," I cried, "you played me false! You ran
away! By what miracle did you come through? I confess my defeat. You
beat me by almost half a year."

"But now you have come," said she simply.

"Yes, to remind you that you have friends. You have been here in secret
all the winter. Mr. Calhoun did not know you had come. Why did you not
go to him?"

"I was waiting for you to come. Do you not remember our bargain? Each
day I expected you. In some way, I scarce knew how, the weeks wore on."

"And now I find you both here--you and your father--where I would expect
to find neither. Continually you violate all law of likelihood. But now,
you have seen Elisabeth?"

"Yes, I have