“It was doing different things from what I planned that worked all the mischief.  If we hadn’t gone to Aix, we wouldn’t have gone up Mont Revard; and if we hadn’t gone up Mont Revard, the Prince wouldn’t have had to vanish.”

“If he hadn’t, would the Princess have appeared—­for me?  Or would she always have been passing—­passing—­I not dreaming of her presence, though she was by my side?”

“Who can tell?  Each event in life seems to be propped up against all the others, like a tower of children’s bricks.  Anyway, we did go, and Something had sent up to the snowy top of that mountain in Savoie the very last man in the world—­except one—­I would have chosen to meet.  It was—­his brother—­the younger brother of the man I had found out.  He wasn’t sure of me, I could tell:  for he had never seen me with my hair short; and I had got so thin, and my face so brown; but he suspected, and he is a gossiping sort of fellow.  If he had had a chance to see me by daylight, he would have been sure, and then there would be some wild story flashing all over America.  That is why I ran away.  But it hurt me to leave you like that, Man.”

“It cut off all my arms and legs, and my head, and left me only a trunk,” I murmured.

“I couldn’t think what else to do; indeed, I could hardly think at all.  But I knew Molly and Jack were going to Chambery to spend a day, and I thought I might catch them there, if I hurried.  You see, Molly and I wrote to each other sometimes, though I never said a word about you.  I didn’t dream you’d knew them, until one day you announced things you’d said to Molly in a letter, which—­which—­well, things which would need a lot of explanation, too difficult for black and white.”

“By Jove!” I exclaimed.  “Now I know where I’d seen your handwriting before.  It was in a letter which Molly dropped almost on my head, from a balcony at Martigny, and there was a photograph——­”

“Oh, you didn’t see it?”

“That’s what Molly asked.  I satisfied her that I hadn’t.”

“Suppose you had—­before you met me!  But never mind.  I did find them at Chambery.  They’d just arrived, and I told Molly everything.”

“What did she say?”

“Oh, she just lent me some of her clothes, and said they’d take me with them in the automobile, out of danger’s way until we could decide on a plan.  I bought the thing you call a ‘mushroom’ in a shop, and we were starting off next morning when—­you came along.  Well——­”

“Well?”

“Molly and Jack were in a very awkward position:  for I had said to Molly that I felt I could never face you again—­never, anyhow, as the Boy, and that he had gone out of your life irrevocably.  There I sat in the motor car, and there were you in the street.  You can’t imagine how I felt.  It would have been horrid for them—­your best friends—­to leave you stranded, and—­I didn’t want that either.  I couldn’t help feeling