"Oh! I love you, my Paul—like this, like this! Beautiful one! Just a splendid primitive savage beneath the grace, as a man should be. When I feel how strong you are my heart melts with bliss!"

And Paul, to show her it was true, seized her in his arms, and ran with her, placing her on a high rock, where he made her pay him with kisses and tell him she loved him before he would lift her down.

And it was his lady's caprice, as she said, that this state of things should last all day. But by night time, when they got to Flüelen, the infinite mastery of her mind, and the uncertainty of his hold over her, made her his Queen again, and Paul once more her worshipping slave.

* * * * *

Now, although his master was quite oblivious of posts, Tompson was not, and that Monday he took occasion to go into Lucerne, whence he returned with a pile of letters, which Paul found on again reaching the Bürgenstock, after staying the night at Flüelen in a little hotel.

That had been an experience! His lady quite childish in her glee at the smallness and simplicity of everything.

"Our picnic," she called it to Paul—only it was a wonderfully recherché picnic, as Anna of course had brought everything which was required by heart of sybarite for the passing of a night.

Ah! they had been happy. The Queen had been exquisitely gracious to her slave, and entranced him more deeply than ever. And here at the Bürgenstock, when he got into his room, his letters stared him in the face.

"Damned officiousness!" he said to himself, thinking of Tompson.

He did not want to be reminded of any existence other than the dream of heaven he was now enjoying.

Oh! they were all very real and material, these epistles—quite of earth! One was from his mother. He was enjoying Lucerne, she hoped, and she was longing for his return. She expected he also was craving for his home and horses and dogs. All were well. They—she and his father—were moving up to the town house in Berkeley Square the following week until the end of June, and great preparations were already in contemplation for his twenty-third birthday in July at Verdayne Place. There was no mention of Isabella except a paragraph at the end. Miss Waring was visiting friends at Blackheath, he was informed. Ah, so far away it all seemed! But it brought him back from heaven. The next was his father's writing. Laconic, but to the point. This parent hoped he was not wasting his time—d—d short in life! and that he was cured of his folly for the parson's girl, and found other eyes shone bright. If he wanted more money he was to say so.

Several were from his friends, banal and everyday. And one was from Tremlett, his own groom, and this was full of Moonlighter and—Pike! That gave him just a moment's feeling—Pike! Tremlett had "made so bold" as to have some snapshots done by a friend, and he ventured to send one to his master. The "very pictur'" of the dog, he said, and it was true. Ah! this touched him, this little photograph of Pike.

"Dear little chap," he said to himself as he looked. "My dear little chap."

And then an instantaneous desire to show it to his lady came over him, and he went back to the sitting-room in haste.

There she was—the post had come for her too, it seemed, and she looked up with an expression of concentrated fierceness from a missive she was reading as he entered the room. Her marvellous self-control banished all but love from her eyes after they had rested on him for an instant, but his senses—so fine now—had remarked the first glance, just as his eye had seen the heavy royal crown on the paper as she hastily folded it and threw it carelessly aside.

"Darling!" he said "Oh! look! here is a picture of Pike!"

And if it had been the most important document concerning the fate of nations the lady could not have examined it with more enthralled interest and attention than she did this snapshot photograph of a rough terrier dog.

"What a sweet fellow!" she said. "Look at his eye! so intelligent; look at that patte! See, even he is asking one to love him—and I do—I do—"

"Darling!" said Paul in ecstasy, "oh, if we only had him here, wouldn't that be good!"

And he never knew why his lady suddenly threw her arms round his neck, and kissed him with passionate tenderness and love, her eyes soft as a dove's.

"Oh, my Paul," she said, a break in her wonderful voice, whose tones said many things, "my young, darling, English Paul!"

Presently they would drive to see that quaint farm she wanted to show him. The day was very warm, and to rest in the comfortable carriage would be nice. Paul thought so, too. So after a late lunch they started. And once or twice on the drive through the most peaceful and beautiful scenery, a flash of the same fierceness came into the lady's eyes, gazing away over distance as when she had read her letter, and it made Paul wonder and long to ask her why. He never allowed himself to speculate in coherent thought words even as to who she was, or her abode in life. He had given his word, and was an Englishman and would keep it, that was all. But in his subconsciousness there dwelt the conviction that she must be some Queen or Princess of a country south in Europe—half barbaric, half advanced. That she was unhappy and hated it all, he more than divined. It was a proof of the strength of his character that he did not let the terrible thought of inevitable parting mar the bliss of the tangible now.