Chapter XVI

“And now,” Christopher said, as their car crawled up the last ascent, “to see if Myrtile has kept her word!”

“Personally,” Lord Hinterleys declared, “I am confident. That young woman has powers beyond the ordinary human being’s. Besides, our telegrams every day have assured us that all is well.”

“It seems curious to me that Gerald should have been so content,” Mary remarked. “Is this the place, Christopher?”

Christopher nodded. The car was slowing up. On their right was the little grove of cypress trees and the gate.

“Here they are!” Mary exclaimed. “Why, just look at Gerald!”

The two young people came down the cypress grove, arm in arm. Gerald was walking with much of his old swagger. Once more his head was thrown back; once more there was all the joy of wild spirits in the abandon of his enthusiastic greeting. Myrtile, on the other hand, seemed quieter than usual.

“Something deuced odd about the look of both of them,” Lord Hinterleys remarked. “Gerald, you rascal, how are you?”

“Sane and sound, sir,” Gerald answered, stretching out his hand, “thanks to Myrtile.”

Lord Hinterleys looked at her curiously. Her eyes suddenly fell. She had been laughing a little hysterically a moment before. Now a fit of trembling seemed to have seized her.

“Gerald, what have you been up to?” his father demanded.

Gerald laughed.

“Listen to that, dad,” he said, “and see if you can’t guess.”

The bell from the little white church was tinkling away crazily. Gerald passed his arm around Myrtile.

“She’s terrified to death,” he declared. “Please every one tell her that they’re glad.”

Myrtile was easily persuaded. Her father-in-law dispossessed Gerald as they turned towards the house. Mary walked on the other side.

“You have now arrived in time for the celebrations,” Gerald continued. “The feasting tenantry are in view on the far side of the house. You will presently have the opportunity of hearing me make a little speech in my most perfect French, which I have just learnt by heart.”

“So you are really married!” Mary exclaimed incredulously. “Gerald--Myrtile--how wonderful it all seems!”

“Amazing!” Gerald agreed. “Matrimony was evidently my predestined Mecca. I am no longer ill. I have never been so happy in my life. I was ploughing for four hours yesterday, and practising approach shots over the road to get rid of a little superfluous energy after tea. What I really covet is the job of Pierre, the head man, but Myrtile won’t listen to it. She says I don’t understand the soil.”

As they reached the house, the old curé came shuffling out, beaming with smiles, delighted to find that every one spoke his own language and that he could talk to them about Myrtile.--Luncheon was spread out on the verandah, and Marie and a young friend from the village, with great bunches of white carnations fastened to their frocks, were waiting to serve. Gerald himself uncorked the wine.

“I propose to make a speech,” Lord Hinterleys announced, holding out his foaming glass.

“It must be a short one,” Gerald insisted. “The omelette won’t wait.”

“Then, as an omelette is my favourite dish and that one appears to be a _chef-d’oeuvre_, I drop the speech,” his father assented. “I will only say, Gerald, that you have made Mary and me very happy, and that no bride in the world was ever more welcome than Myrtile to our home and lives.”

Every one began to talk at once. By and by, that curious sense of unreality, the feeling that the whole thing was a scene out of an old-fashioned comedy, passed away. Gerald, who was shamelessly holding Myrtile’s hand under the tablecloth, raised his glass and looked into her eyes.

“It was I, after all,” he whispered, “who had no idea what lay at the end of the road. You were the wise lady and I the fool. You climbed, I pushed my way through the slough--but we found out.”

All through the afternoon the villagers came and went, and the young people danced in the field at the back of the farm. Many toasts were exchanged. Every one was extraordinarily happy. Then the time came for Christopher, who was on his way back to England, to leave. Mary, who was spending the night with her father at Cannes, walked with him to the road. They paused for a moment at the gate.

“And it was really here that you found Myrtile?” Mary remarked, looking around her with interest.

“We found her on this very spot,” Christopher answered, “gazing along the road to the hills. All her life she had wondered what lay on the other side. Many of us never find out. I think that Gerald has been very fortunate.”

“I am glad that you are happy about it,” she said, with quiet but tactful significance.

“It is because I am happy about it,” Christopher rejoined, turning towards her, “that I am going to venture--that, Mary--well, I think I feel a little like the man who walked for a few minutes of his life in the moonlight and fancied that it was day. I honestly thought that I was in love with Myrtile. I know now that there is no one I ever really cared for but you, Mary.”

She raised her head and looked at him, yielding unresistingly to the arm which was drawn around her.

“I am quite sure,” she murmured, “that this is an enchanted land.”

THE END

NOVELS _by_ E. PHILLIPS OPPENHEIM

“He is past master of the art of telling a story. He has humor, a keen sense of the dramatic, and a knack of turning out a happy ending just when the complications of the plot threaten worse disasters.”--_The New York Times._

“Mr. Oppenheim has few equals among modern novelists. He is prolific, he is untiring in the invention of mysterious plots, he is a clever weaver of the plausible with the sensational, and he has the necessary gift of facile narrative.”--_The Boston Transcript._

A Prince of Sinners The Way of These Women
A Maker of History The Kingdom of the Blind
The Man and His Kingdom The Pawns Count
The Yellow Crayon The Zeppelin’s Passenger
A Sleeping Memory The Curious Quest
The Great Secret The Wicked Marquis
Jeanne of the Marshes The Box with Broken Seals
The Lost Ambassador The Great Impersonation
A Daughter of the Marionis The Devil’s Paw
Havoc Jacob’s Ladder
The Lighted Way The Profiteers
The Survivor Nobody’s Man
A People’s Man The Great Prince Shan
The Vanished Messenger The Evil Shepherd
The Seven Conundrums The Mystery Road

Boston LITTLE, BROWN & COMPANY Publishers

TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES:

Italicized text is surrounded by underscores: _italics_.

Perceived typographical errors have been corrected.

Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been standardized.

Archaic or variant spelling has been retained.