“What reason could there be?”

“That I asked you to stay because I should be unhappy if you left.”

“I think you should tell me exactly what you mean.”

“I mean that I could not let you go away. That I want you to stay here always … to make this place your home. I’m telling you that I love you.”

“Are you asking me to marry you?”

“Not yet. There are things we must talk over first.”

“But you have decided not to marry again.”

“There was one woman in the world who could make me change my mind. I didn’t even know she existed, and how was I to guess that chance should send her to me?”

“You are certain?” I asked and I heard the joy in my voice.

He stood still and took my hands in his; he looked solemnly into my face.

“Never more certain in my life.”

“And yet you do not ask me to marry you?”

“My dearest,” he said, “I would not have you waste your life.”

“Should I waste it… if I loved you?”

“Do not say if. Say you do. Let us be completely truthful with each other. Do you love me, Dallas?”

“I know so little of love. I know that if I left here, if I never saw you again, I should be more unhappy than I had ever been in my life.”

He leaned towards me and kissed me gently on the cheek.

“That will do for a start. But how can you feel so … for me?”

“I don’t know.”

“You know me for what I am … I want you to. I could not let you marry me unless you really knew me. Have you thought of that, Dallas?”

“I have tried not to think of what seemed to me quite impossible, but secretly I have thought of it.”

“And you thought it impossible?”

“I did not see myself in the role of femme fatale.”

“God forbid.”

“I saw-myself as a woman scarcely young, without any personal charm, but able to take care of herself, one who had put all foolish romantic notions behind her.”

“And you did not know yourself.”

“If I had never come here I should have become that person.”

“If you had never met me … And if I had never met you … ? But we met and what did we do? We began to wipe off the bloom … the mildew you know the terms. And now here we are.

Dallas, I’ll never let you leave me . but you must be sure . “

“I am sure.”

“Remember you have become a little foolish … a little romantic. Why do you love me?”

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t admire my character. You have heard rumours. What if I tell you that a great many of those rumours are true?”

“I did not expect you to be a saint.”

“I have been ruthless … often cruel… I have been unfaithful… promiscuous … selfish … arrogant. What if I should be so again?”

“That I am prepared for. I am, as you know, self-opinionated…. governessy as Genevieve will tell you …”

“Genevieve …” he murmured, and then with a laugh: “I am also prepared.”

His hands were on my shoulders; I felt a rising passion in him and I was responding with all my being. But he was seeking for control; it was as though he was holding off that moment when he would take me in his arms and we should forget all else but the joy of being together at last in reality.

“Dallas,” he said, ‘you must be sure. “

“I am … I am … never more sure …”

“You would take me then?”

“Most willingly.”

“Knowing … what you know.”

“We will start again,” I said.

“The past is done with. What you were or what I was before we met is of no importance. It is what we shall be together.”

“I am not a good man.”

“Who shall say what is goodness?”

“But I have improved since you came.”

“Then I must stay to see that you go on improving.”

“My love,” he said softly, and held me against him, but I did not see his face.

He released me and turned me towards the chateau.

It rose before us, like a fairy castle in the moonlight, the towers seeming to pierce that midnight-blue back cloth of the sky.

I felt like the Princess in a fairy story. I told him so.

“Who lived happy ever after,” I said.

“Do you believe in happy endings?” he asked.

“Not perpetual ecstasy. But I believe it is for us to make our own happiness and I am determined that we shall do that.”

“You will make sure of it for both of us. I’m content. You will always achieve what you set out to do. I think you determined to marry me months ago. Dallas, when our plans are known there will be gossip. Are you prepared for that?”

“I shall not care for gossip.”

“But I do not want you to have illusions.”

“I believe I know the worst. You brought Philippe here because you had decided not to marry. How will he feel?”

“He will go back to his estates in Burgundy and forget he was once to inherit when I died. After all, he might have had a long time to wait, and who knows, when it came to him he might have been too old to care.”

“But his son would have inherited. He might have cared for him.”

“Philippe will never have a son.”

“And his wife? What of her? I have heard that she was your mistress.

It’s true, isn’t it? “

“At one time.”

“And you married her to Philippe who you did not think would have a son so that she could bear yours?”

“I am capable of such a plan. I told you that I am a scoundrel, didn’t I? But I need you to help me overcome my vices. You must never leave me, Dallas.”

“And the child?” I asked.

“What child?”

“Her child … Claude’s child.”

“There is no child.”

“But she has told me that she is to have a child … your child.” “It is not possible,” he said.

“But if she is your mistress?”

“Was, I said, not is. You began to use your influence on me as soon as we met. Since she married Philippe there has been nothing between us.

You look dubious. Does that mean you don’t believe me? “

“I believe you,” I said.

“And … I’m glad. I can see that she wanted me to go. But it doesn’t matter. Nothing matters now.”

“You will probably hear of other misdeeds now and then.”

“They will all be in the past. It will be the present and future which will be my affair.”

“How I long for the time when my affairs are entirely yours.”

“Could we say that they are from now on … ?”

“You delight me; you enchant me. Who would have believed I could hear such sweetness from your lips?”

“I should not have believed it myself. You have put a spell on me.”

“My darling! But we must settle this. Please… please ask me more questions. You must know the worst now. What else have you heard of me?”

“I thought you were the father of Gabrielle’s child.”

“That was Jacques.”

“I know now. I know too that you were kind to Mademoiselle Dubois. I know that you are good at heart….”

He put an arm round me and as we walked across the drawbridge he said: “There is one thing you have not mentioned. You do not ask about my marriage.”

“What do you expect me to ask?”

“You must have heard rumours.”

“Yes, I have heard them.”

“Little else was talked of in these parts at the time. I believe half the countryside believed I murdered her. They will think you are a brave woman to marry a man who, so many believed, murdered his wife.”

“Tell me how she died.”

He was silent.

“Please …” I said, ‘please tell me. “

“I can’t tell you.”

“You mean …”

“This is what you must understand, Dallas.”

“You know how she died?”

“It was an overdose of laudanum.”

“How, tell me how?”

“You must never ask me.”

“But I thought we were to be truthful with each other … always.”

“That is why I can’t tell you.”

“Is the answer so bad, then?”

“The answer is bad,” he said.

“I don’t believe you killed her. I won’t believe it.”

“Thank you … thank you, my dear. We must not talk of it again.

Promise me not to. “

“But I must know.”

“It is what I feared. Now you look at me differently. You are uncertain. That is why I did not ask you to marry me. I could not until you had asked that question … and until you had heard my reply.”

“But you have not replied.”

“You have heard all I have to say. Will you marry me?”

“Yes … it is no use anyone’s trying to tell me you’re a murderer. I don’t believe it. I’ll never believe it.”

He picked me up in his arms then.

“You’ve given your promise. May you never regret it.”

“You are afraid to tell me….”

He put his lips to mine and the passion burst forth. I was limp clinging to him, bewildered, ecstatic, in my romantic dream.

When he released me he looked sombre.

“There will be gossip to face. There will be those who whisper behind our backs. They will warn you …”

“Let them.”

“It will not be an easy life.”

“It is the life I want.”

“You will have a stepdaughter.”

“Of whom I am already fond.”

“A difficult girl who may become more so.”

“I shall try to be a mother to her.”

“You have done much for her already, but…”

“You seem determined to tell me why I should not marry you. Do you want me to say no?”

“I should never allow you to say no.”

“And what if I did?”

“I should carry you to one of the dungeons and keep you there.”

Then I remembered the key and I told him how I had discovered it.

“I was hoping to present you with your long lost emeralds,” I said.

“If this is the key to them I’ll present them to you,” he told me.

“Do you think this key really does open wherever they are?”

“We can find out.”

“When?”

“Now. The two of us. Yes, we’ll go exploring together.”

“Where do you think?”

“I think in the dungeons. There are fleursdelis in one

of the cages exactly like this. It may well be that one of them will give us the clue. You would like to go now? “

I was suddenly aware of others besides ourselves. Jean Pierre searching in the chateau for the emeralds. we must find them before he did, for if he found them, he would steal them and bring disgrace on his family.

“Yes, please,” I said.

“Now.”

He led the way to the stables, where he found a lantern; he lighted this and we made our way to the dungeons.

“I think I know where we will find the lock,” he told me.

“It’s coming back now. I remember years ago when I was a boy there was an examination of the dungeons and this cage with the fleur-delis decorations was discovered. It was noticed because it was so unusual.

A dado of fleursdelis around the cage. It seemed such a strange idea to decorate such a place. Evidently there was a purpose. “

“Didn’t they look to see if there was a locked hiding-place?”

“Evidently there was no sign of that. The theory was that some poor prisoner had somehow managed to make them no one knew how and fit them on the wall of his cage. How he worked in the gloom was a mystery.”

We reached the dungeons and he swung open the iron-studded door. How different it was entering that dark and gloomy place with him; all fear was gone. I felt in a way it was symbolic. Whatever happens, if we’re together, I can face it, I thought.

With one hand he held the lantern high; with the other he took my hand.

“The cage is somewhere here,” he said.

The smell of decay and dampness was in the close atmosphere; my foot touched one of those iron rings to which a rusting chain was attached.

Horrible! And yet I was not afraid.

He gave a sudden exclamation.

“Come and look here.”

I was beside him and here I saw theli^-‘16;115, There were twelve of them placed at intervili‘0’”” I the cage about six inches from the ground. , He gave me the lantern and crouchi10^”He the” to push aside the first of the flowers butil^011111”01 move because it was so firmly attached to tli^11,1 watchea him touch them in turn. At the sixth hif1180 , ” Just a minute,” he said.

“This one seili’ oose:

He gave an exclamation; I lifted thel^”I hlghe1’ and saw him push the flower aside. Beneadi’^,^100 The key fitted, and actually turned in^ lock-can you see a door here?” he asked. , . “There must be something,” I answtl-‘ e there. ” I tapped the wall.

“There is a cavity behind this wall,” II^”’ j He threw his weight against the sidei^ cage and ^ our excitement there was a groaning sr an so part of the wall appeared to move.