The fountain was very far away.  He crawled along with ever-increasing difficulty, marking the progress of his own shadow in the strong moonlight.  There was something pitiless about the moon.  It revealed so much that might have been mercifully veiled.

From the far distance there came the long roll of cannon, shattering the peace of the night, but it was a long way off.  In the chateau-garden there was no sound but the tinkle of the fountain and the laboured, spasmodic breathing of a man wounded wellnigh unto death.

Only a few yards separated him now from the running water.  It sounded like a fairy laughter, and all the gruesome horrors of the place faded into unreality.  Surely it was fed by the stream at home that flowed through the preserves—­the stream where the primroses grew!

Only a few more yards!  But how damnably difficult it was to cover them!  He could hardly drag his weighted limbs along.  It was the old game.  He knew it well.  But how devilish to fetter him so!  It had been the ruin of his life.  He set his teeth, and forced himself on.  He would win through in spite of all.

The moonlight poured dazzlingly upon the white marble basin, and on the figure of a nymph who bent above it, delicately poised like a butterfly about to take wing.  He wondered if she would flee at his approach, but she did not.  She stood there waiting for him, a thing of infinite daintiness, the one object untouched in that ravaged garden.  Perhaps after all it was she and not the fountain that drew him so irresistibly.  He had a great longing to hear her speak, but he was afraid to address her lest he should scare her away.  She was so slight, so spiritual, so exquisite in her fairy grace.  She made him think of Jeanie—­little Jeanie who had prayed for his happiness and had not lived to see her prayer fulfilled.

He drew near with a certain stealthiness, fearing to startle her.  He would have risen to his feet, but his strength was ebbing fast.  He knew he could not.

And then—­just ere he reached the marble basin, the goal of that long, bitter journey—­he saw her turn a little towards him; he heard her speak.

“Dear Sir Galahad!”

“Jeanie!” he gasped.

She seemed to sway above the gleaming water.  Even then—­even then—­he was not sure of her—­till he saw her face of childish purity and the happy smile of greeting in her eyes!

“How very tired you must be!” she said.

“I am, Jeanie!  I am!” he groaned in answer.  “These chains—­these iron bars—­I shall never get free!”

He saw her white arms reach out to him.  He thought her fingers touched his brow.  And he knew quite suddenly that the journey was over, and he could lie down and rest.

Her voice came to him very softly, with a hushing tenderness through the miniature rush and gurgle of the water.  As usual she sought to comfort him, but he heard a thrill of triumph as well as sympathy in her words.