never could know. He had gone to Scotland, and she did not expect him
back for several weeks.

So she turned aside with this stranger, and passed out upon his arm into
the dusk of the soft spring night.

"You know these gardens well?" he questioned.

She came out of her meditations.

"Not really well. Lady Blythebury and I are friends, but we do not visit
very often."

"And that but secretly," he laughed, "when the lion is absent?" She did
not answer him, and he continued after a moment: "'Pon my life, the
very mention of him seems to cast a cloud. Let us draw a magic circle,
and exclude him!" He waved his wand. "You knew that I was a magician?"

There was a hint of something more than banter in his voice. They had
reached the end of the terrace, and were slowly descending the steps.
But at his last words, Lady Brooke stood suddenly still.

"I only believe in one sort of magic," she said, "and that is beyond the
reach of all but fools."

Her voice quivered with an almost passionate disdain. She was suddenly
aware of an intense burning misery that seemed to gnaw into her very
soul. Why had she come out with this buffoon, she wondered? Why had she
come to the masquerade at all? She was utterly out of sympathy with its
festive gaiety. A great and overmastering desire for solitude descended