“Why not?” she laughed.  “You speak as though you had but to command to be obeyed.”

“Forgive me, dear,” he answered softly.

And Opal became her sympathetic self again.

“Tell me about your mother, Paul,” she said.

And Paul, beginning at the very beginning, told her the whole story as it had been told to him, reading much of his mother’s letter to her, reserving only such portions of it as would reveal the identity he was determined to keep secret until she was his.  The girl was moved to the depths of her nature by the beauty and pathos of it all, and then the thought came to her, “This, then, is Paul’s heritage—­his birthright!  He, like me, is doomed!”

And her heart ached for him—­and for herself!

But Paul did not give her long to muse.  Sitting down beside her for the first time, he told her the plan he had been turning over in his mind for their one day together.

“Surely,” he said, “it is not too much to ask out of a lifetime of misery—­one little day of bliss!  Just one day in which there shall be no yesterday, and no to-morrow—­one day of Elysium against years of Purgatory!  Let us have our idyl, dear, as my mother and father had theirs—­even though it must be as brief as a butterfly’s existence, let us not deny ourselves that much.  I ask only one day!

“You love me, Opal.  I love you.  You are, of all the world of women, my chosen one, as I—­no, don’t shake your head, for you can’t honestly deny it—­am yours!  We know we must soon part forever.  Won’t it be easier for both of us—­both, I say—­if for but one day, we can give to each other all!  Won’t all our lives be better for the memory of one perfect day?  Think, Opal—­to take out of all eternity just a few hours—­and yet out of those few hours may be born sufficient courage for all the life to come!  Don’t you see?  Can’t you?  Oh, I can’t argue—­I can’t reason!  I only want you to be mine—­all mine—­yes, if only for a few hours—­all mine!”

“Paul, you are mad,” she began, but he would not listen.

“Just one day,” he pleaded—­“no yesterday, and no to-morrow!”

He looked at her tenderly.

“Opal, it simply has to be—­it’s Fate!  If it wasn’t meant to be, why have we met here like this?  Do you think we two are mere toys in the grip of circumstances?  Or do you believe the gods have crossed our paths again just to tantalize us?  Is that why we are here, Opal, you and I—­together?”

“Why, I came to rest—­to see Lucerne!  Most tourists come to Lucerne!  It’s a—­pretty—­place—­very!” she responded, lamely.

“Well, then, account for the rest of it.  Why did I come?—­and at the same time?—­and find you here in my mother’s room?  Simply a coincidence?  Answer me that!  Chance plays strange freaks sometimes, I’ll admit, but Fate is a little more than mere chance.  Why did I hear your voice, that time?  Why did I see you, and follow?  Why did we find ourselves so near akin—­so strangely, so irresistibly drawn to each other?  Answer me, Opal!  Why was it, if we weren’t created to be—­one?”