“That’s it,” said he, calling all his tact to the rescue.  “I am a fairy father.  Just as you thought, it’s a mistake of Jane’s about there being no fairies; only the trouble is, fairies aren’t so powerful as they used to be in the old days.  Now, I should love to be able to stay with you for a long, long time, but because I’m only a poor fairy father, I can’t.  We’ve been very happy together, and I’m tremendously glad you found me.  I shall think of you and of this day, often.  But the cruel part is, that when I bring you to your door, I’m afraid I shall have to—­vanish.”

“Oh, how dreadful!” cried Rosemary, her voice quivering.  “Must I lose you again?”

“Perhaps I can write to you,” Hugh tried to console her, feeling horribly guilty and helpless.

“That won’t be the same.  I do love you so much. Please don’t vanish.”

“I shall send you things.  A doll’s house for Evie.  By the way, you didn’t tell me why you named her that.”

“After Angel, of course,” returned the child absent-mindedly.  “But when you’ve vanished, I—­”

“Is your mother’s name Evie?”

“Evelyn.  But that’s too long for a doll.”

“Evelyn—­what?  You—­you haven’t told me your name yet.”

“Rosemary Evelyn Clifford.”

“Great Heavens!”

“How strange your voice sounds,” said Rosemary.  “Are you ill?”

“No—­no!  I—­feel a little odd, that’s all.”

“Oh, it isn’t the vanishing coming on already?  We’re a long way from our hotel yet.”

Hugh drove mechanically, though sky and sea and mountains seemed to be seething together, as if in the convulsions of an earthquake.

Her child!  And her husband—­what of him?  The little one said he was lost; that he had not been kind.  Hugh gritted his teeth together, and heard only the singing of his blood in his ears.  Was the man dead, or had he but disappeared?  In any case, she was here, alone in Monte Carlo, with her child; poor, unhappy, working by day, crying by night.  He must see her, at once—­at once.

Yet—­what if it were not she, after all?  If the name were a coincidence?  There might be other Evelyn Cliffords in the world.  It must be that this was another.  His Evelyn had married a rich and titled Englishman.  She was Lady Clifford.  The things that had happened to Rosemary’s Angel could not have happened to her.  Still, he must know, and know quickly.

“Where do you live, little Rosemary?” he asked, grimly schooling his voice, when he felt that he could trust himself to speak.

“The Hotel Pensior Beau Soleil, Rue Girasole, in the Condamine, Monte Carlo,” answered the child, as if she were repeating a lesson she had been taught to rattle off by heart.

Lost as he was to most external things, Hugh roused himself to some surprise at the name of the hotel.

“Why, that is where Mademoiselle de Lavalette and her mother live!” he exclaimed.