There was a moment's pause, in which we heard a step cross the hall. Then the Duke came in, and Ted introduced him to Essie. She bowed slightly, but he did not. He stared at her, transfixed, overwhelmed. At that moment the discreet voice of Mr. Rodwell was heard in the doorway. "Can I have one last word, Mr. Hopkins? A matter of some importance." "Yes, yes," said Ted darting to the door, thankful to escape. As he left the room he said to me, "Take Essie at once into the hall. At once, do you hear?" He might as well have said, "Take her to the moon." The Duke and Essie gazed at each other with awed intentness. There was sheer amazement on his face, blank despair on hers. They were entirely absorbed in each other. As I stood in the background I felt as if I were a ghost, that no word of mine could reach their world. At last he spoke, stammering a little. "Madam, on the night of my coming of age I left the dancers, and came in here, and behold! you were sitting on that divan, all in white." "Yes," said Essie. "We saw each other for the first time," he said, trembling exceedingly. "Yes." "And I knelt at your feet." "Yes." A suffocating compassion overcame me. It was unendurable to pry upon them, oblivious as they were of my presence. I left the room. "He will go out of her life in five minutes," I said to myself, "never to return. Poor souls. Poor souls. Let them have their say." I had never seen Romance before, much less such a fantastic romance as this, in a faery land as forlorn as this. My heart ached for them. Presently I heard Ted's voice in the distance shouting a last message to the departing Rodwell, and I went back to the octagonal room. He was kneeling at her feet, her pale hands held in his, and his face bowed down upon them. "You must go," she said faintly. He shuddered. "You must go," she repeated. "To me you can only be a picture. To you I am only a dream." "Yes, it is time to go," I said suddenly in a hoarse voice. I obliged them to look at me, to listen to me. Slowly he released her hands, and got upon his feet. He was like a man in a trance. "Go! Go!" I said sharply. Something urgent in my voice seemed to reach his shrouded faculties. He looked in bewildered despair at Essie. "Go!" she repeated with agonised entreaty, paler than I had ever seen a living creature. Still like a man in a trance he walked slowly from the room, passing Ted in the doorway without seeing him. In the silence that followed we heard his motor start and whirl away. "He's gone," said Essie, and she fainted. We had considerable difficulty in bringing her round, and, angry as I was with Ted, I could not help being sorry for him when for some long moments it seemed as if Essie had closed her eyes on this world for good.