"Betty, there are some things that it is not given to us to understand, perhaps now and again in the lives of some mortals the curtain is for a moment lifted. It may have been so with us, lifted and then, allowed to fall again—and when it has been lifted only for a moment, Betty, it is better that we who have been granted a sight beyond it, should forget what we have seen and never let it influence our thoughts or our lives. Can you understand me, Betty?"
She nodded silently, she looked at him with her glorious eyes and in them he saw to his dismay, his terror almost, the same light, the light of the love he had seen shining in the eyes of his dream maiden.
But now she broke the spell, she dropped him a curtsey, she was turning away.
"Be there any answer to my lady’s message, sir?" she asked.
He went back to the stone seat and sat there, conscious that life and the world had changed suddenly for him. He dropped his chin onto his hand and sat staring, staring and seeing nothing.
He knew that once he had hoped that she might come and she had come and now he knew he was sorry and yet glad, with a strange gladness.
"Betty!" he said and said it aloud. "Betty——!" And saw her, not as he had seen her but a moment ago, but as he had seen her that first time in her picturesque flowered gown, so quaintly high waisted, the neck cut low to shew her slender white throat, the little mittened hands and the mob cap on her shining head.
But the face, the eyes, the lips, ah! they were the same!
He rose suddenly and seemed to shake himself mentally and physically. This was real life, this was the world all about him. There was no time for folly and for dreams—to-morrow the old house would be filled with visitors. He remembered the telegram suddenly and found it crushed into a ball in his hand. He opened it and smoothed it out and read it.
"It is from my wife’s father," he said aloud, and then repeated the words as of some set meaning and for some known purpose, "my wife’s father!"
Long ago before their marriage, Allan had promised to tell Kathleen if his dream maiden should ever come to him in real life. And she had come, yet he had not told his wife. To-morrow the old house would be filled with guests. Kathleen had much to do and much to think about, why trouble her now with this foolish story? After all the visitors were gone—why then—perhaps—but not now!