“He never doubted me, not for an instant,” mused the Colonel, “but it’s just as well that I’m going.  She could probably manage it, if we lived in the same house, so that I’d have to tell at least one lie a day, and I’m not an expert.  Perfection might come with practice—­I’ve known it to—­but I’m too old to begin.”

He was deeply grateful to Francesca for her solution of the problem that confronted him.  It had appeared and been duly solved in the space of half an hour.  She had been his good angel for more than thirty years.  It might be very pleasant to live there, after he became accustomed to the change, and with Allison so near—­why, he couldn’t be half as lonely as he was now.  So his thoughts drifted into a happier channel and he was actually humming an old song to himself when he heard Allison’s step, almost at midnight, on the road just beyond the gate.

He went in quietly, closed the door, and was in his own room when Allison’s latch-key rattled in the lock.  The Colonel took pains not to be heard moving about, but it was unnecessary, for Allison’s heart was beating in time with its own music, and surging with the nameless rapture that comes but once.

Down in the moon-lit, dream-haunted garden, Allison waited for Isabel, as the First Man might have waited for the First Woman, in another garden, countless ages ago.  Stars were mirrored in the lily-pool; the waning moon swung low.  The roses had gone, except a few of the late-blooming sort, but the memory of their fragrance lingered still in the velvet dusk.

No music came from the quiet house, for Rose had not touched the piano since That Night.  It stood out in his remembrance in capitals, as it did in hers, for widely different reasons.  Only Isabel, cherishing no foolish sentiment as to dates and places, could have forgotten That Night.

With a lover’s fond fancy, Allison had written a note to Isabel, asking her to meet him in the garden by the lily-pool, at nine, and to wear the silver-spangled gown.  It was already past the hour and he had begun to be impatient, though he was sure she had received the note.

A cobweb in the grass at his feet shone faintly afar—­like Isabel’s spangles, he thought.  A soft-winged wayfarer of the night brushed lightly against his cheek in passing, and he laughed aloud, to think that a grey moth should bring the memory of a kiss.  Then, with a swift sinking of the heart, he remembered Isabel’s unvarying coldness.  Never for an instant had she answered him as Rose—­

“Nonsense,” he muttered to himself, angrily.  “What an unspeakable cad I am!”

There was a light step on the path and Isabel appeared out of the shadows.  She was holding up her skirts and seemed annoyed.  In the first glance Allison noted that she was not wearing the spangled gown.

She submitted to his eager embrace and endured his kiss; even the blindest lover could not have said more.  Yet her coldness only thrilled him to the depths with love of her, as has been the way of men since the world began.