Mountains_.

RUPERT'S JOURNAL--_Continued_.

_July_ 8, 1907.

I wonder if ever in the long, strange history of the world had there come
to any other such glad tidings as came to me--and even then rather
inferentially than directly--from the Archimandrite's answers to my
questioning. Happily I was able to restrain myself, or I should have
created some strange confusion which might have evoked distrust, and
would certainly have hampered us in our pursuit. For a little I could
hardly accept the truth which wove itself through my brain as the true
inwardness of each fact came home to me and took its place in the whole
fabric. But even the most welcome truth has to be accepted some time by
even a doubting heart. My heart, whatever it may have been, was not then
a doubting heart, but a very, very grateful one. It was only the
splendid magnitude of the truth which forbade its immediate acceptance.
I could have shouted for joy, and only stilled myself by keeping my
thoughts fixed on the danger which my wife was in. My wife! My wife!
Not a Vampire; not a poor harassed creature doomed to terrible woe, but a
splendid woman, brave beyond belief, patriotic in a way which has but few
peers even in the wide history of bravery! I began to understand the
true meaning of the strange occurrences that have come into my life.
Even the origin and purpose of that first strange visit to my room became
clear. No wonder that the girl could move about the Castle in so
mysterious a manner. She had lived there all her life, and was familiar
with the secret ways of entrance and exit. I had always believed that
the place must have been honeycombed with secret passages. No wonder
that she could find a way to the battlements, mysterious to everybody
else. No wonder that she could meet me at the Flagstaff when she so
desired.

To say that I was in a tumult would be to but faintly express my
condition. I was rapt into a heaven of delight which had no measure in
all my adventurous life--the lifting of the veil which showed that my
wife--mine--won in all sincerity in the very teeth of appalling
difficulties and dangers--was no Vampire, no corpse, no ghost or phantom,
but a real woman of flesh and blood, of affection, and love, and passion.
Now at last would my love be crowned indeed when, having rescued her from
th