"Godfrey! Is it actually you!" And looking up, I saw my well-beloved standing upon the oak minstrels' gallery, fresh and sweet in a white serge gown, and little changed from those old well-remembered days when we had met and wandered together beside the sea. Ah! how my heart leapt at sight of her. She ran swiftly down the stairs, and next moment I held both her soft hands in mine and was looking into those beautiful blue eyes that for years had been ever before me in my day-dreams. Assuredly no woman on earth was fairer than she! Love does not come at will; and of goodness it is not born, nor of gratitude, nor of any right or reason on the earth. "Fancy!" she cried. "Fancy your coming here. But why have you come?" she asked anxiously. "You don't know in what peril your presence here places me." "Have you seen Lucie?" I asked. "Not since she went to Italy. Has she returned?" "Yes. I am here in order to tell you something." "Then let's go into the garden. My father has gone in the car to Bewdley." And she led me through the old stone-paved corridor and across the quiet ancient courtyard and out into a beautiful rose-garden where the high box-hedges were clipped into fantastic shapes, and the roses climbed everywhere upon their arches. "What a delightful place!" I exclaimed. "I had no idea that Wichenford was like this." "Hadn't you?" she laughed. Then sighing, she added: "Yes. I love it just as much as dear old dad does. Let us sit here." And she sank upon an old seat of carved stone, grey and lichen-covered. It was in a spot where we were hidden by the foliage, yet before us spread the beautiful gardens with the long terrace, and beyond the broad undulating park with the great old oaks in all their autumn glory. There in the quiet tranquillity, the silence only broken by the song of the birds, I briefly told my love of the attempt made upon my life and of the death of Lucie's father--a story which held her speechless in amazement. We sat there hand in hand. "I had no idea that you were ill, otherwise I should have, of course, gone at once to see you," she said, with the old love-looking in her dear eyes as she looked at me. "Ah! I knew you would, my darling!" I cried, raising her hand to my lips. "I dare not write for fear that my letter might fall into that man's hands. I called upon your aunt, and she told me that you are to be married shortly. Is that really so?" I asked huskily. "Alas! Godfrey, it is," she murmured. "I have tried and struggled and schemed, but I cannot escape. Ah! if my father only knew the truth concerning him! But I am compelled to wear a mask always--always. It is horrible!" And she covered her face with her hands. "Yes, horrible!" I echoed. "Why don't you let me stand before that thief and accuse him?" "And reveal my secret to my father. Never--never! I would die rather than he should know." And her face grew pale and hard, and her small hand trembling in mine.