"He had awakened at last," she went on, "but the girl did not know it. She did not realize that he had renewed old hopes and ambitions; that some feeling in his heart for her had stirred old purposes into new resolves. He did not tell her, though unconsciously she may have known, for after a day of adventure together on the hills something of the old romance returned, and her old ideal of knighthood little by little seemed about to be restored. And then, all at once, it came--the hour of real trial, with a test of which she could not even have dreamed--and he stood before her, glorified." They were at the hill-top. The flat stone in front of the tumbled house still remained. As they reached it she stopped, and turning suddenly stretched out her hand to him, slowly opening it to disclose a little silken case. Her eyes were wet with tears. "Oh, my dear!" she said. "Here, where you gave me the talisman, I return it. I have kept it for you all the years. It brought me whatever the world had to give--friends, fortune, health. You did not claim it, dear; but it is yours, and in return, oh, my fairy prince--my true knight--I claim the world's best treasure--a brave man's faithful love!" EPILOGUE It is a lonely thoroughfare, that North Elba road. Not many teams pass to and fro, and the clattering stage was still a mile away. The eternal peaks alone looked down upon these two, for it is not likely that even the leveled glass of any hermit of the mountain-tops saw what passed between them. Only, from Algonquin and Tahawus there came a gay little wind--the first brisk puff of autumn--and frolicking through a yellow tree in the forsaken door-yard it sent fluttering about them a shower of drifting gold. THE END