I shall have
won my bet, and I shall bring _you_ the thing I win."
"I won't take it!" I laugh.
"Wait till you see it, before you make sure."
"I'm not even sure yet of seeing you," I remind him.
"You may be sure if I'm alive. I shall scour the country for miles
around to find you. I shall succeed--unless I'm dead."
All this time he had been holding my hand, while I have pretended to be
unconscious of the fact. Suddenly I seem to remember, and reluctantly he
lets my fingers slip through his.
We bid each other _adieu_ in the arbour. I do not go to "see him off,"
and I keep the picture of Jim Wyndham under the roof of roses, in the
moon-and candle-light.
Just so I have kept it for more than three years; for we never met
again. And now that I've seen the photograph of Jimmy Beckett, I know
that we never shall meet.
Why he did not find us when the fortnight of his bet was over I can't
imagine. It seems that, if he tried, he must have come upon our tracks,
for we travelled scarcely more than twenty miles in the two weeks.
Perhaps he changed his mind, and did not try. Perhaps he feared that my
"romantic beauty" might lose its romance, when seen for the second time.
Something like this must be the explanation; and I confess to you,
Padre, that the failure of the prince to keep our tryst was the biggest
disappointment and the sharpest humiliation of my life. It took most of
the conceit out of me, and since then I've never been vain of my alleged
"looks" or "charm" for more than two minutes on end.
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