Two or three minutes pa.s.sed, when the man who had gone on her errand returned. She glanced eagerly up.

"Madame Zairoff is not in the drawing-room," he said in a low voice. "I met her maid on the stair-case, and she says that madame is not well enough to leave her apartments this evening."

"But, good gracious me," began Mrs Jefferson, with angry impatience.

"I saw--"

"Hush," said Colonel Estcourt in a low, impressive voice. "Oblige me by saying nothing about it. Remember, I too was looking in the same direction, yet I saw--nothing."

Mrs Jefferson dropped her knife and fork and stared at him.

"Now, Colonel," she said, "am I in my senses, or am I not? I've only had iced water to drink. I believe I'm a commonplace person eating a commonplace, though very excellent, dinner. Nothing's been playing tricks with my nerves I can swear, and I do a.s.sure you that the Princess Zairoff stood there in that doorway and looked in here, not five minutes ago. Why, I'll even tell you the gown she had on. It was thick white silk and had a border of soft-looking white fur. There!" she added triumphantly. "You may go up to her rooms after dinner, and if she hasn't got that gown on, and if she didn't come by that doorway--well-- I'll say I've gone stark staring mad! That's so!"

CHAPTER THIRTEEN.

A PROMISE.

Just as the ladies had left the dining-room, a note was put into Colonel Estcourt's hand.

He opened it and read the two brief lines it contained. "I will see you in my boudoir when you have finished dinner."

He pushed aside the gla.s.s he had just filled and left the table at once.

He knocked at the door of her room, and the low, sweet voice that bade him enter, thrilled his heart with its accustomed sorcery. He opened the door, but as he stepped across the threshold, he suddenly paused, and for a moment it seemed to him that his heart ceased to beat. Was it only chance that reproduced the dream-scene of the previous night, for the suite of rooms were thrown open, and through the delicate amber tints of the satin hangings gleamed the faint rose-hue of lamplight, paling into opal in the farthest chamber but giving to all the soft and glowing colouring he remembered so well. Swiftly as his eyes took in the picture, they seemed also to take in the lovely figure reclining among soft snowy furs, robed in colourless silk bordered with the same fur.

She raised herself on her arm as he approached. "I have not treated you well to-day, Julian," she said. "But I have been ill--nervous-- disturbed. I slept badly, and had terrible dreams. You must forgive me."

He bent over the extended hand and touched it with his lips.

"You are cold," she said. "What is the matter?"

"I too, had a terrible dream," he said. "I suppose the effects are still upon me." Then he looked calmly and fixedly at her.

"You were downstairs a few moments ago," he said. "Why?"

She looked surprised. "Did you see me?" she asked.

He shook his head. "No," he said. "It was your American friend."

Her face grew thoughtful. "Then the power _is_ coming back," she said.

"I wonder why."

He seated himself beside her. "Of course," he said, "it was not really yourself?"

"I have not left this couch for three hours," she said. "All the same, I wanted to have a peep at you all."

"I hope you will not exercise that power too frequently," he said. "You know I never liked it."

"I know," she said, smiling up at his grave face, "that you were always afraid I should not come back from my flights, but I always do. _They_ send me--very much against my will--still, I must obey."

She sighed. Then after a moment she put out her hand with a caressing little gesture. "What was your terrible dream?" she said. "I see it is troubling you still. You are _distrait_ and absent. Tell me."

He touched the white hand with his lips.

"I would rather not," he said, "because you were concerned in it, and it seemed as if you were trying to reveal something or show me something that I dreaded to see. It was in fighting against seeing it that I awoke."

She started from her reclining position and fixed her eyes on his face.

"Julian," she cried, in a sudden breathless way, "was it--was it?--No."

She broke off and wrung her hands helplessly. "It has escaped me again.

I _cannot_ remember. Oh, that I could! It tortures me so. Julian--"

and she looked at him appealingly. "_You_ must help me--you must bring it back. I will not wed you till that mystery is solved. Something warns me against it."

"My dearest," he said soothingly, "do not excite yourself in this fashion. It can make no difference to me that there should be mystery or tragedy in your past life. Have I not always loved you? Have we not chosen the same path in life, only now we shall tread it side by side, not one far in advance of the other? The infinite delight of that companionship shall not be marred by any memories of the past. If I am content to let it rest, surely you may be."

She drew herself away. Her deep strange eyes looked coldly and yet mournfully back to his yearning gaze.

"You were never a coward, Julian," she said. "What is it you fear now?"

He threw himself on his knees by her side and buried his face in the soft white furs. She saw that he was trembling greatly. "I cannot tell," he said hoa.r.s.ely. "Would to G.o.d that I could! But if you should change, if you should repent--Oh! to lose your love now would kill me!"

She laid her hand on his bowed head. "Rest a.s.sured you shall not lose _that_," she said in her low thrilling voice. "No, Julian, that is not the danger--it threatens me, not you. There will be no change on my part, not so far as my love is concerned. Will that a.s.surance satisfy you?"

"You need not ask that, beloved? But why disturb our peace? If I am content--"

"There must be no secret between your soul and mine," she said solemnly.

"For what, think you, is your power granted, but that I may answer to it, that I may lead you on the road--and that you, for me, may throw open the portals?"

"In the future," he said eagerly, "I am content to do your will. But not now--not to draw the veil from our buried miseries. Let them be as dead things--out of sight and mind."

"You know," she said, "that nothing dies--not a life, or an act, or a thought. You may put the past out of sight, but it lives still--lives in its hidden crimes, its secret sins, its evil and its good--lives to haunt and shape our future, let that future dream as it will of forgetfulness."

He rose from his knees, his face was still pale, but his eyes glowed like living fire.

"When will you wed me, Estarah?" he asked, abruptly.

The soft colour flushed her cheek. Her eyes drooped.

"My heart is yours," she said. "My life lives but in the shadow of your own. Why should I withhold--this poor gift?"

She placed her hand in his, and let him draw her to his heart. "I will wed you when you will," she said, "but only if you yield to my condition. It is an easy one, Julian. Why do you fear?"

Ah--why? He could not answer that question to his own heart, much less to hers. He could not paint the shuddering horror which had forced him to veil his eyes and shrink aghast from that last scene in his Dream.

Yet when he looked down on her in her pure womanly beauty, and felt the clinging tenderness of her arms, and knew that among all the world of men who had worshipped and wooed her, he alone had kept his place and awakened a response of tenderness, he felt his heart thrill and glow with sudden strength and pride.

"It shall be as you wish," he said. "On the night that heralds our bridal morn, I promise, if my power be still the same, that I will do your bidding."

She lifted her face. It was radiant with a strange mysterious joy. "At last," she said, brokenly--"at last I shall know. Every page of my life will be clear. Heart to heart, soul to soul, so we shall stand, oh, beloved! You and I, with senses purified, with no secret unshared, with spirits unfettered and souls at rest, so shall we greet our bridal morn.