“I only know that I wrote those vain-glorious lines and that you must have read them,” I said.

“I did not read them!  Oh, I could box your ears!  While you were composing that rhapsody Mr. Chilvers and others came along and asked you to play golf with them.  Golf being more important than anything else on earth, you rushed up stairs for your clubs and left that diary on the table.  Do you remember that on your way to the first-tee you met Miss Ross, Miss Dangerfield and me?”

I remember it.

“When we arrived on the veranda,” she continued with rising indignation, “Miss Dangerfield picked up that literary treasure of yours and of course opened it to the page from which I have been quoting.  And then she read it to us!  I never was so mortified and angry in my life.  I rushed away from them, and when you found me I was so angry that I could have killed you.  It was not a declaration of your love for me; it was a declaration of my love for you!”

I could not help laughing, and then she did box my ears.

“That little minx of a Miss Dangerfield busied herself until your return from your golf game in copying from your diary its choicest extracts,” continued Grace, after we had “made up,” “but I managed to get them away from her, and I have them yet.  Some of them were—­well, they were nicer than the one Miss Dangerfield read.”

“Which one, for instance?”

“I won’t flatter your vanity by repeating them.  But when I received your letter and had thought it over several days I decided to forgive you, Jack, and so I wrote you that letter.”

“But I never received a letter from you!” I exclaimed.

On comparing dates we found that I had left Albuquerque before the letter could arrive there, and that it probably had not been forwarded to Woodvale in time so that I would get it prior to my sailing.

“It was a cold and formal letter,” she said, trying to look severe.

“I don’t care anything about the old letter, sweetheart,” I declared, “now that I have found you.”

And then we laughed and cried and were very happy.  It seems that Miss Dangerfield gave the diary to the steward, who must have sent it to my rooms, for I have no recollection of missing it at any time.

We talked of many, many things as we sat there within the shadows of the old castle.

“Oh, Jack!” she suddenly exclaimed, “we must secure an invitation for you to the wedding.”

“Ours, dearest?” I innocently asked.  “Do I need an invitation?”

“You are so stupid I’m afraid you will—­if it ever takes place,” she added, looking down.  “Be good, Jack, and don’t tease me.  I meant to Lord Marwick’s wedding.”

“Lord Marwick?  Who is Lord Marwick?”

“Lord Wallace Marwick, of Perth!” she exclaimed, clapping her hands in delight at being the custodian of some great secret.

“My knowledge of the peerage is so slight, dearest, that I confess I have never heard of, much less met, Lord Wallace Marwick of Perth,” I declared, smiling in sympathy with her enthusiasm.