As if suddenly stabbed by the palpable pose of his own remark, the light died out of his face and he looked round the great dim ball with a restless, eager glance, as though trying to impress the picture of it on his memory. “Beirnfels--my ‘House of Dreams-Come-True,’” he muttered to himself. He had named it thus in those first glowing days when love had transfigured the grim old border castle, turning it into a place of magic visions and consummated hopes. The whimsical name took its origin from a little song which Jacqueline had been wont to sing to him, her glorious voice investing the simple words with a passionate belief and triumph. It’s a strange road leads to the House of Dreams, To the House of Dreams-Come-True, Its hills are steep and its valleys deep, And salt with tears the Wayfarers weep, The Wayfarers--I and you. But there’s sure a way to the House of Dreams, To the House of Dreams-Come-True. We shall find it yet, ere the sun has set. If we fare straight on, come fine, come wet, Wayfarers--I and you. Peterson’s eyes rested curiously on his daughter’s face. There was something mystic, almost visionary, in their quiet, absent gaze. “One day, Jean,” he said, “when you meet the only man who matters, Beirnfels shall be yours--the house where _your_ dreams shall come true. It’s a house of ghosts now--a dead house. But some day you and the man you love will make it live again.” CHAPTER II--MADAME DE VARIGNY JEAN was standing looking out from the window of her room in the hotel at Montavan. In the distance, the great white peaks of the Alps strained upwards, piercing the mass of drifting cloud, whilst below lay a world sheeted in snow, the long reach of dazzling purity broken only where the pine-woods etched black trunks against the whiteness and the steely gleam of a frozen lake showed like a broad blade drawn from a white velvet scabbard. It had been part of Peterson’s expressed programme that, before going their separate ways, he and Jean should make a brief stay at Montavan, there to await Lady Anne Brennan’s answer to his letter. Jean had divined in this determination an excuse, covering his need to take farewell of that grave on the lonely mountain-side before he set out upon the solitary journey which could not fail to hold poignant memories of other, former wanderings--wanderings invested with the exquisite joy of sharing each adventure with a beloved fellow-wayfarer.