“You forget; Timothy is dead,” she said, and the subject never rose again. Yet to Alice, in these simple silk frocks, she looked more lovely than ever before; and then again, the other difference, the close band of velvet round her neck, hiding the red scar that still spoilt, and perhaps would always spoil, the lovely neck. And many a time Alice would find her sitting alone in the big gardens with their bright-coloured flowers and the butterflies playing round, and to her the Princess looked nothing but that fairest, sensitive plant, the heavenly lily, transformed from a golden butterfly into something lovelier still. Then Alice, to hide her feelings, would scold from the distance, where she was not heard, and had no wish to be. “Moping,” said she, in the homely language of those who are not taught to pick their words except in company. “Moping, and it’s not all for Timothy. And it’s wearing her into her grave. Consumption! That’s what he said to salve his conscience. Telling me the symptoms so that I might know them when they rose. And it’s as well, perhaps, because I’d never have guessed myself--I thought it was all the other way about. But what can I do--what can I do?” And one day a brilliant idea struck her--send for St Armand. He who, in their return to the old life, had quite slipped her memory. Was he not a gentleman of good birth?--a friend of the great High Priest? And had he not promised her the best physicians?--though her mistress absolutely refused to have a doctor near the place. So she wrote a plain letter to the address that he had given her--the High Priest’s Palace--and asked for his advice. And the next afternoon Marigold walked out alone as usual in the flower-gardens, taking a book and some trivial needlework, and sat as usual, thinking and grieving, and scarcely understanding what she felt. And looking up, she beheld St Armand approaching her, with the easy confidence that characterised him. “Marigold! This is better than a game of hide-and-seek--now that I’ve found you.” His manner was so kind, his voice so cheerful, that she smiled, though the colour had risen all over her neck and face, for he was one of the links in her past life--had he not been intimately acquainted with the doctor? “How did you find me?” He sat down beside her. “A restless activity that leads me to discover everything. You have treated us somewhat shabbily.” “Whom?” “Myself, who wished to be your friend; and the High Priest, who wished to be your lover.” Marigold took up the handkerchief she was embroidering. “Believe me, I have grown too old for that last. I am no longer so thoughtless as I used to be.” “How old _are_ you, Marigold?” “I don’t know. They never kept count, and it was impossible, under the circumstances, that I should do.” And the first tantalising smile crept on to her face as she looked across at him, though with a difference from the olden times.