“A pretty name.  I’ve often wondered how you came to give it to her,” said Lanstron to Minna.

“You do like it!” exclaimed Minna with girlish eagerness.  “I gave her the most beautiful name I could think of because”—­she laid her hand caressingly on the child’s head and a madonna-like radiance stole into her face—­“because she might at least have a beautiful name when”—­the dull blaze of a recollection now burning in her eyes—­“when there wasn’t much prospect of many beautiful things coming into her life; though I know, of course, that the world thinks she ought to be called Maggie.”

* * * * *

Proceeding leisurely along the main path of the first terrace, Lanstron followed it past the rear of the house to the old tower.  Long ago the moat that surrounded the castle had been filled in.  The green of rows of grape-vines lay against the background of a mat of ivy on the ancient stone walls, which had been cut away from the loopholes set with window-glass.  The door was open, showing a room that had been closed in by a ceiling of boards from the walls to the circular stairway that ran aloft from the dungeons.  On the floor of flags were cheap rugs.  A number of seed and nursery catalogues were piled on a round table covered with a brown cloth.

“Hello!” Lanstron called softly.  “Hello!” he called louder and yet louder.

Receiving no answer, he retraced his steps and seated himself on the second terrace in a secluded spot in the shadow of the first terrace wall, where he could see any one coming up the main flight of steps from the road.  When Marta walked she usually came from town by that way.  At length the sound of a slow step from another direction broke on his car.  Some one was approaching along the path that ran at his feet.  Around the corner of the wall, in his workman’s Sunday clothes of black, but still wearing his old straw hat, appeared Feller, the gardener.  He paused to examine a rose-bush and Lanstron regarded him thoughtfully and sadly:  his white hair, his stoop, his graceful hands, their narrow finger-tips turning over the leaves.

As he turned away he looked up, and a glance of definite and unfaltering recognition was exchanged between the two men.  Feller’s hat was promptly lowered enough to form a barrier between their eyes.  His face was singularly expressionless.  It seemed withered, clayish, like the walls of a furnace in which the fire has died out.  After a few steps he paused before another rose-bush.  Meanwhile, both had swept the surroundings in a sharp, covert survey.  They had the garden to themselves.

“Gustave!” Lanstron exclaimed under his breath.

“Lanny!” exclaimed the gardener, turning over a branch of the rose-bush.  He seemed unwilling to risk talking openly with Lanstron.

“You look the good workman in his Sunday best to a T!” said Lanstron.

“Being stone-deaf,” returned Feller, with a trace of drollery in his voice, “I hear very well—­at times.  Tell me”—­his whisper was quivering with eagerness—­“shall we fight?  Shall we fight?”