ontented.

Paul no longer used the word happy, even in his solitary thoughts.
Happiness, that priceless elusive treasure, can come only to a heart
at peace in the warm sunshine of love. Material things can make for
contentment, but ah! how uncertain is that will-o'-the-wisp happiness.

As he sat pondering over the future, which now lay before him more
definitely almost than he had dared to think, a faint sound caught his
ear--the merest stir as of something moving above him. The stairway
leading from the terrace to the path below formed a partial shelter
for the bench. He turned instinctively, gazing at the landing, but saw
nothing.

He had just decided that his nerves were playing him a trick, when the
sound was repeated. This time he felt sure that some one, some thing,
was stirring close back of him. Again he turned and scanned the flight
of steps, gray in the bright starlight, until suddenly his eyes stood
still. They rested as if stopped by some mysterious compelling
power--some living magnet that seemed to hold them against his will.
And then in the luminous light the delicate outlines of a face seemed
to establish themselves, like a shadowy canvas painted by some fairy
brush.

It was a face Paul knew right well, for it had scarcely left him,
waking or sleeping, for many, many years. Framed in the dark foliage,
it leaned toward him over the parapet, half visible, half obscured.

In a twinkling the weight of a score of years slipped like a cloak
from Paul's shoulders. With a wild, choking cry he leaped to his feet,
and stretching both his arms above him, "My Queen! my Queen!" he
called.

But as he moved the vision vanished. And Paul knew that it was only a
cruel jest of Fate, and himself to be as ever but the plaything of his
evil genius, which never ceased to torture him. Relentlessly the load
of years crept back upon him and like an Old Man of the Sea wound
themselves about his shoulders and clutched him in a viselike grip,
and he sank with a convulsive gasp upon the bench again.

Soon the spasm passed. But for Paul the night was no longer beautiful.
Only unutterable sadness seemed to pervade the place. The very air
seemed heavy with oppressive grief. And rising, he tottered like an
old man around to the foot of the steps and dragged himself slowly up.

He had reached the landing immediately above the bench he had just
quitted when he saw a blur of white--an indistinct patch in the
half-light. He reache