Like a being inspired, she passed back into her own appartement, and there, with a strange high excitement that was yet mystically calm, entered her little bedroom and lighted candles until not a shadow was left in all the white circumscribed space; then, standing in the illumination, like an acolyte who ministers to some secret rite, she slowly unburdened herself of her boy’s garments.

The task was brief; they fell from her lightly, leaving her fair and virginal and untrammelled in body, as she was virginal and untrammelled in mind; and with a sweet gravity she clothed herself, garment by garment, in the dress of the morning.

Ardent and eager—­yet restrained, as befitted a woman aware of her high place—­she left the room and passed down the Escalier de Sainte-Marie.  A rush of cool air came to her across the plantation, kissing her hot cheeks, the holly bushes whispered their secrets—­which were her secrets as well, the eyes of the stars looked down, smiling into her eyes.  She observed no face in the thronging faces that passed her; she made her steadfast way to the one point in the universe that was her goal by right divine.  Even in the hallway of Blake’s house she did not stop to question, but mounted the stairs and knocked upon his door, regardless of the stormy beating of her heart, the faintness of anticipation that encompassed her.

A moment passed—­a moment or a century; then he was before her, appealing to the innermost recesses of her being.

He stared at her, as one might stare upon a ghost.

“Maxine!”

Her lips parted, trembling with a pleading tenderness.

“Maxine!” he said again; and now his voice shook, as hers had shaken in Max’s little starlit studio.

It was the cry she had waited for—­the confirmation of her faith.  Her hands went out to him; her soul suddenly poured forth allegiance in look and voice.

“Ned!  Ned!  Take me!  Take me and teach me!  Take me away to your castle, like the princess of old.  Show me the white sky and the opal sea, and the seaweed that smells like violets!”

His hands clasped hers, his incredulous eyes besought her.  “Maxine, this is some dream?”

“No; it is no dream.  We are awake.  It is life!”

THE END