"In a way that was a mistake," I answered. "He never intended that I should go further than the farm two miles from the Hall, where we had pulled up. He thought he would need me to identify some of the men about to be arrested, and so he wanted me on the spot. But he had not told me why he wanted me there, so when the police officers prepared to start out for Eldon from the farm, naturally I insisted upon going with them—I wanted to see some of the fun, or what I thought was going to be an extremely exciting event." "Which it proved to be," she said seriously. Just then I remembered something. "Look, my darling," I said, "what I received this morning." I drew out of my pocket a letter, and handed it to her. It bore a German postmark. It had been posted in Alsace-Lorraine. She unfolded the letter, and slowly read it through. "How dreadful," she said. "Poor Jack!" I paused. "It may not be," I said at last. "All his life he has done odd and unexpected things, and they have generally turned out well. He has written to me twice since he left England, and I am convinced, now, that he and Jasmine Gastrell—or rather Jasmine Osborne—are tremendously in love with each other. I told you of his idea that she would, when he had married her, entirely change her life. Perhaps that idea is not as quixotic as we first thought." "Perhaps, if they really love each other—" she began, then stopped abruptly. "My darling," I murmured, "is there any miracle that love isn't able to accomplish? Look what you have faced, what I have faced, during these dreadful months of anxiety and peril. It was love alone that strengthened us—love alone that held us together in those moments of terrible crises. Come." So we turned slowly homeward in the golden light of the spring afternoon, secure in our love for one another and in the knowledge that the black shadows which had darkened our lives during the past months had at last vanished for ever. THE END