"We will go now," I answered. "She will have no need of anything that she has left behind. We will each choose a keepsake, and lock the rest up."
We entered the room all together, almost on tiptoe. If we had been wearing hats I am sure that we should have taken them off. How, with such trifling means at her command, she could have left behind in that tiny chamber so potent an impression of daintiness and comfort I cannot tell. But there it was. Her little bed, with its spotless counterpane, was hung with pink muslin. There was a lace spread upon her toilet-table, on which her little oddments of silver made a brave show. Only one thing seemed out of place, a worn little slipper peeping out from under a chair. I thrust it into my pocket. The others took some trifle from the table. Then, as silently as we had entered, we left the room. As I turned the key I choked down something in my throat, and did my best to laugh--a little unnaturally, I am afraid.
"Come!" I cried, "it is I who am responsible for this attack of sentiment. I will show you how to get rid of it. You dine with me at Hautboy's. I have money--lots of it. Feurgéres left me twenty thousand pounds. Hautboy's and a magnum of the best. How long will you fellows be dressing?"
They tried to fall into my mood. Allan mixed cocktails. We drank and smoked and shouted to one another uproariously from our rooms as we changed our clothes. We drove to Hautboy's three in a hansom, and Arthur spent his usual five minutes chaffing the young lady behind the tiny bar. But when the wine came, and our glasses were filled, a sudden silence fell upon us. We looked at each other, and we all knew what was in the minds of all of us. It was Allan who spoke.
We drank in silence, each busy with his own thoughts. But afterwards Arthur raised his glass high above his head.
"To the Princess Isobel!" he cried. "Long life and good luck to her!"
Arthur and Allan went their several ways within twenty-four hours of our farewell dinner. I saw them both off, and I forced them with great difficulty to share to some small extent in Feurgéres' legacy. Then I took some rooms near my club in the heart of London, and line for line, word for word, I re-wrote the whole of the story which I had not dared to show to Isobel, determined that the one thing I still had which was part of her body and soul should be the best that my brain and skill could fashion. So the winter and the early spring passed, and then my story was published.