Baroness Orczy | The Laughing Cavalier [Volume II]

to breathe. He looked round for Mynheer Beresteyn who had disappeared.

Surely this could be only a dream. Nothing real on earth could be so exquisite as that subtle vision which he had of her now, sitting in the high-backed chair, leaning slightly forward toward him. Gradually his eyes became accustomed to the gloom: he could see her quite distinctly no, her fair curls round her perfect head, her red lips parted, her eyes fixed upon him with a look which he dared not interpret.

All around him was the silence and the darkness of the night, and he was alone with her just as he had been in this very room five days ago and then again at Rotterdam.

"St. Bavon, you rogue!" he murmured, "where are you? How dare you leave me in the lurch like this?"

Then — how it all happened he could not himself have told you — he suddenly found himself at her feet, kneeling beside the high-backed chair; his arms were round her shoulders and he could feel the exquisite perfume of her breath upon his