And stooping she kissed him gently, lingeringly, on the brow.  It was a kiss of consecration.

* * * * *

A few minutes more, and then, with the Eighth Prelude swaying and dancing round them, they went hand in hand down the long approach to the music-room.

The door was open, and they saw the persons inside.  Otto and Sorell were walking up and down smoking cigarettes.  The boy was radiant, transformed.  All look of weakness had disappeared; he held himself erect; his shock of red-gold hair blazed in the firelight, and his eyes laughed, as he listened silently, playing with his cigarette.  Sorell evidently was thinking only of him; but he too wore a look of quiet pleasure.

Only Mrs. Mulholland sat watchful, her face turned towards the open door.  It wore an expression which was partly excitement, partly doubt.  Her snow-white hair above her very black eyes, and her frowning, intent look, gave her the air of an old Sibyl watching at the cave’s mouth.

But when she saw the two—­the young man and the girl—­coming towards her, hand in hand, she first peered at them intently, and then, as she rose, all the gravity of her face broke up in laughter.

“Hope for the best, you foolish old woman!” she said to herself—­“’Male and female made He them!’—­world without end—­Amen!”

“Well?” She moved towards them, as they entered the room; holding out her hands with a merry, significant gesture.

Otto and Sorell turned.  Connie—­crimson—­threw herself on Mrs. Mulholland’s neck and kissed her.  Falloden stood behind her, thinking of a number of things to say, and unable to say any of them.

The last soft notes of the Prelude ceased.

It was for Connie to save the situation.  With a gentle, gliding step, she went across to Otto, who had gone very white again.

“Dear Otto, you told me I should marry Douglas, and I’m going to.  That’s one to you.  But I won’t marry him—­and he agrees—­unless you’ll promise to come to Algiers with us a month from now.  You’ll lend him to us, won’t you?”—­she turned pleadingly to Sorell—­“we’ll take such care of him.  Douglas—­you may be surprised!—­is going to read law at Biskra!”

Otto sank into a chair.  The radiance had gone.  He looked very frail and ghostly.  But he took Connie’s outstretched hand.

“I wish you joy,” he said, stumbling painfully over the words.  “I do wish you joy!—­with all my heart.”

Falloden approached him.  Otto looked up wistfully.  Their eyes met, and for a moment the two men were conscious only of each other.

Mrs. Mulholland moved away, smiling, but with a sob in her throat.

“It’s like all life,” she thought—­“love and death, side by side.”

And she remembered that comparison by a son of Oxford, of each moment, as it passes, to a watershed “whence equally the seas of life and death are fed.”