In the afternoon the children, Frau Graben and I drove down into the town to see the preparations. Flags were hanging from the windows of the houses and I had never seen the flower-boxes at many of the windows so colourful. Some of the shops had boarded up their windows.

The sun was hot; people were laughing and joking; they were all talking of “Tonight’.

“I want to come down here tonight and see the dancing,” announced Dagobert.

“You’re going to see the fireworks,” Frau Graben told him firmly.

“I want to come too,” said Liesel, who followed Dagobert in everything.

“Now, now,” said Frau Graben comfortably, ‘the fireworks will be lovely. “

“I’ll come out and put on a mask and ride down,” cried Dagobert.

“I dare say, my lad, in your dreams,” laughed Frau Graben.

“Now, who’d like to go to The Prince’s for spiced buns?” She gave me a gentle nudge. That sounded funny, didn’`t it? Go to the Prince’s for spiced buns. The inn, I mean, of course, not His Highness. “

She went on chuckling at her joke and I made up my mind that the next day I would come down to the town when the children were with Pastor Kratz and ride up to the schloss and tell the guards that they must let the Prince know that Helena Trant was asking to see him. At least if I did not see him, then I might discover how I could do so.

The children chattered over their buns and Frau Graben said we’d better be getting back. The crowds started coming in early, and we didn’`t want to get caught in the crush.

The evening came. I kept thinking of that long-ago day, of going forth into the town another town, it was true, but that afternoon I had been struck by the similarity between the two-of losing Ilse and plunging straight into fantasy.

The children were allowed to stay up a little later than usual to see the fireworks.

“Providing,” said Frau Graben, ‘that as soon as they are over, there are no protests about going to bed. “

So when it was dark we went to the turret-room the children, myself and Frau Graben. Candles in sconces stood on either end of the mantel shelf and on the polished table was a small candelabrum. The effect was enchanting.

We ranged ourselves round the window and the display began.

It was taking place in the grounds of the ducal schloss, which was an excellent spot as it would be visible from almost every point. The children shrieked with excitement as the fireworks flashed across the sky and when the display was over there were groans of disappointment, but Frau Graben hustled them all away and as she did so she whispered to me:

“Stay here. I’ll join you later. There’s something I want to show you.”

So I stayed and, looking round the room, remembered the unhappy woman who was alleged to have thrown herself from the window and haunted the room ever since. In candle light it did seem eerie. I wondered how desolate one had to become before one took such a terrible step; I could imagine her feelings so acutely in those moments.

I felt a great desire to go to my comfortable room below; here I felt remote from the rest of the fortress, although only the spiral staircase separated us.

I turned away from the window and sat at the table. Footsteps were mounting the spiral staircase-two sets of footsteps. My heart began to beat wildly. I wasn’`t sure why. I sensed that something tremendous was about to happen. Frau Graben was with the children-she could hardly have bad time yet to see them in bed. There were just the two maids in the fortress. The steps were not light enough for those.

The door was thrown open. It was Frau Graben, beaming, her hair slightly ruffled, an unusual flush in her cheeks.

She said: “Here she is.”

And then I saw Maximilian.

I stood up, my hand touching the table for support. He came in; he stared at me unbelievingly. Then he said: “Lenchen! It can’t be!

Lenchen! “

I went forward; I was caught in his arms. I clung to him. I felt his lips on my brow and cheeks.

“Lenchen,” he repeated.

“Lenchen, it can’t be.”

I heard Frau Graben chuckle.

“There. I brought her for you, couldn’'t have my Lightning fretting, so I went and got her for you.”

Her laughter broke in on our wonder in each other and we were only vaguely aware of what she was saying. Then the door shut and we were alone.

I said: “I’m not dreaming, am I? I’m not dreaming?”

He had taken my face in his hands; his fingers caressed it as though he were tracing its contours.

“Where have you been, Lenchen, all this time?”

“I thought I should never see you again.”

“But you died?

You were in the lodge?

“The lodge had disappeared when I went back. Where had you gone? Why didn’`t you come for me?”

“I’m afraid you’ll disappear in a moment. I’ve dreamed of you so often. And then I wake to find my arms empty and you gone.

You were dead, they told me. You were in the lodge when it happened ..”

I shook my head. All I wanted for the moment was to cling to him.

Later we could talk.

“I can only think of one thing at the moment. You’re here with me.”

“We’re together. You’re alive, my darling Lenchen , .. alive and here. Never leave me again.”

I leave you. ” I laughed. I hadn’`t laughed like that for years abandoned, gay in love with life.

And for the moment there was nothing for us both but the joy of this blissful reunion. We were together; his arms were about me; his kisses on my lips . our bodies calling for each other. A hundred memories were back with me-they had never really left me, but before I had never dared look back at this perfect joy because to know that it had gone, to have that lingering doubt that it had ever existed, would have been unbearable.

But there was the mystery between us.

“Where have you been?” he was demanding.

“What happened on the Night of the Seventh Moon?” I had to know.

We sat side by side on the couch before us was the open window; the smell of burning bonfires was on the air; we could hear the shouts of the people far away in the town.

I said: “We must start from the beginning. I must know everything. Can you imagine what it is like to believe there is a possibility that you have lost six days of your life and three of them the happiest you have ever known? Oh, Maximilian, what happened to us? Start at the beginning. We met in the mist. You took me to your hunting lodge and I stayed a night there and you tried to come to my room but the door was locked and Hildegarde was there to protect me. That was real enough, I know. It is the next part. My cousin Ilse and her husband Ernst came to Oxford and brought me back to the Lokenwald.”

“She was not your cousin, Lenchen. Ernst was in my service. He had been an ambassador to the court of Klarenbock, the home of the Princess.”

“She whom they say is your wife. How can she be? / am your wife.”

“My Lenchen,” he cried fervently, ‘you are my wife. You . and you only. “

“We were married, were we not? It’s true. It must be true.”

He took my hands and looked at me earnestly.

“Yes,” he said, ‘it’s true. The people around me thought I was repeating the practices of my ancestors, which are sometimes carried out now, I fear. But it was not so in our case, Lenchen. We were truly married. You are indeed my wife. I am your husband. “

“I knew it was true. I would not believe otherwise. But tell me, my dearest husband. Tell me everything.”

“You came to the lodge and in the morning Hildegarde took you back to the Damenstift and that was the end of our little adventure-so I thought. It did not turn out as I intended for I saw that you were so young, a schoolgirl merely. It was not only Hildegarde who looked after you that night. But you had done something to me, aroused feelings I had not experienced before. And after you’d gone I continued to think of you and I wanted to see you again. Try to understand how things have been. Perhaps I have been overindulged, not refused often enough. You became an obsession with me. I thought of you constantly. I could not stop thinking of you. I talked of you to Ernst. As an older man of rich worldly experience, he wagered that if my affair with you had progressed as so many had before, I should have forgotten it in a few weeks. So we planned to, bring you out here that you and I might meet again.”

“And Ilse.

“She had married Ernst when he was ambassador to Klarenbock. She is the sister of the Princess but a natural sister, so that marriage with our ambassador was a good one for her. Ernst was ill; he needed medical advice and the best to be found was in London. He wagered me that he and Ilse would bring you back. And so they went to Oxford; they told this story of the relationship between Ilse and your mother and they brought you Out here. “

“A plot!” I cried.

He nodded.

“A not very original one.”

“I did not see through it.”

“Why should you? It was made easy by the fact that your mother was born here. But that I suppose is the pivot on which everything turns.

You had our forests and mountains in your blood. That I sensed from the moment we met. It drew us together. It was simple for Ilse to assume relationship. She could talk of the home life she had alleged she shared with your mother. Homes of the sort from which your mother would have come are very much alike. That part was easy. So you came, and then on the Night of the Seventh Moon . “

“You were there waiting when she brought me into the square and that was her cue to disappear?”

“I was there. My intention was to take you to the lodge and to stay there with you until such a time as one of us should wish to leave. I even had plans for keeping you there altogether. That was really how I hoped it would turn out. “

“But it was different.”

“Yes, it was different. Nothing like it had ever happened to me before. As soon as I saw you again I knew how different. I didn’`t care for anything. I knew that whatever happened afterwards we were meant for each other and that I would face anything rather than lose you.

There would be immense difficulties, I knew, because of my position but I didn’`t care. I could think of only one thing that mattered to me. I was going to make you my wife. “

“And you did! It’s true that you did. They lied to me-Ilse, Ernst and the doctor. They said oh, it was shameful that I was carried off into the forest by a criminal and that I returned to the house in such a state that they had to put me under sedation to save my reason.”

“But they knew what had happened.”

Then why . oh, why . “

“Because they feared the consequences of what I had done. But how could they? Like the rest of my staff, they believed that our marriage was no true marriage. They did not believe it possibly could be. How could I, my father’s heir, marry except for state reasons? But I could, Lenchen, and I did, because I loved you so much that I could contemplate no thing else. I could not deceive you, my darling. How could I deceive my own true love? I knew and they knew that my cousin had on one occasion deluded a girl into thinking that he was marrying her and that the man who performed the ceremony was no true priest, thus making that ceremony with out meaning. A mock marriage.

That was what they thought ours was. But I loved you, Lenchen. I couldn’'t do that. “

“I’m so happy,” I cried.

“So happy!” Then: “Why didn’`t you tell me who you were?”

“I had to keep it secret, even from you, until I had made my arrangements. I alone must explain this to my father, for I knew that there were going to be all kinds of difficulties. He had been urging me to marry for some time for state reasons. It was not the moment to tell him that I had married without his consent and that of his council. There was too much trouble in the dukedom. My Uncle Ludwig was seeking an opportunity to overthrow my father and could well seize on what he would call a mesalliance as a reason for deposing him and setting up my cousin as heir. I could not tell my father then . < s and when I could have done so, I believed you to be dead.”

“I must tell you what happened, because I can see that you have no idea. Ilse and Ernst came and took me away from the lodge after you had gone.”

“And told me that you were there when the place was blown up.”