“I assure you there is—hope, I mean. And life’s as right as rain really. And there’s nothing to despair about. He’s not mad, and it’s not a dream. It’s magic. It really and truly is.”

“The magic exists not,” Mademoiselle moaned; “it is that he is mad. It is the joy to re-see me after so many days. Oh, la-la-la-la-la!”

“Did he talk to the gods?” Gerald asked gently.

“It is there the most mad of all his ideas. He say that Mercure give him rendezvous at some temple tomorrow when the moon raise herself.”

“Right,” cried Gerald, “righto! Dear nice, kind, pretty Mademoiselle Rapunzel, don’t be a silly little duffer”—he lost himself for a moment among the consoling endearments he was accustomed to offer to Kathleen in moments of grief and emotion, but hastily added: “I mean, do not be a lady who weeps causelessly. Tomorrow he will go to that temple. I will go. Thou shalt go—he will go. We will go—you will go—let ’em all go! And, you see, it’s going to be absolutely all right. He’ll see he isn’t mad, and you’ll understand all about everything. Take my handkerchief, it’s quite a clean one as it happens; I haven’t even unfolded it. Oh! do stop crying, there’s a dear, darling, long-lost lover.”

This flood of eloquence was not without effect. She took his handkerchief, sobbed, half smiled, dabbed at her eyes, and said: “Oh, naughty! Is it some trick you play him, like the ghost?”

“I can’t explain,” said Gerald, “but I give you my word of honour—you know what an Englishman’s word of honour is, don’t you? even if you are French—that everything is going to be exactly what you wish. I’ve never told you a lie. Believe me!”

“It is curious,” said she, drying her eyes, “but I do.” And once again, so suddenly that he could not have resisted, she kissed him. I think, however, that in this her hour of sorrow he would have thought it mean to resist.

“It pleases her and it doesn’t hurt me—much,” would have been his thought.

And now it is near moonrise. The French governess, half-doubting, half-hoping, but wholly longing to be near LordYalding even if he be as mad as a March hare, and the four children—they have collected Mabel by an urgent letter-card posted the day before—are going over the dewy grass. The moon has not yet risen, but her light is in the sky mixed with the pink and purple of the sunset. The west is heavy with ink-clouds and rich colour, but the east, where the moon rises, is clear as a rock-pool.

They go across the lawn and through the beech-wood and come at last, through a tangle of underwood and bramble, to a little level tableland that rises out of the flat hill-top-one tableland out of another. Here is the ring of vast rugged stones, one pierced with a curious round hole, worn smooth at its edges. In the middle of the circle is a great flat stone, alone, desolate, full of meaning—a stone that is covered thick with the memory of old faiths and creeds long since forgotten. Something dark moves in the circle. The French girl breaks from the children, goes to it, clings to its arm. It is Lord Yalding, and he is telling her to go.

“Never of the life!” she cries. “If you are mad I am mad too, for I believe the tale these children tell. And I am here to be with thee and see with thee—whatever the rising moon shall show us.”

The children, holding hands by the flat stone, more moved by the magic in the girl’s voice than by any magic of enchanted rings, listen, trying not to listen.

“Are you not afraid?” Lord Yalding is saying.

“Afraid? With you?” she laughs. He put his arm round her. The children hear her sigh.

“Are you afraid,” he says, “my darling?”

Gerald goes across the wide turf ring expressly to say:

“You can’t be afraid if you are wearing the ring. And I’m sorry, but we can hear every word you say.”

She laughs again. “It makes nothing,” she says “you know already if we love each other.”

Then he puts the ring on her finger, and they stand together. The white of his flannel coat sleeve marks no line on the white of her dress; they stand as though cut out of one block of marble.

Then a faint greyness touches the top of that round hole, creeps up the side. Then the hole is a disc of light—a moonbeam