Three Weeks

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.