“Impossible!”

“This is what they told me. They had a doctor there. He said he had kept me under sedation to save my reason, and that the days which I believed I had spent with you had actually been passed in my bed.”

“But how could they hope that you would believe that?”

“I didn’`t, but they had the doctor there. And when I went back to the lodge it was gone.”

“The lodge was blown up on the day I left. Hildegarde and Hans had gone into the town for provisions. It happened while they were away. I believed it was a plot to kill me. There have been such plots before and my Uncle Ludwig was at the bottom of them. It is not the first time that I and members of my family have escaped death by a very small margin. Ernst came to tell me that the lodge had been blown up and you were in it at the time.”

I went there to look for it,” I said, ‘and found it was a shell. So it had only just been demolished. Oh you see how I have been deceived.”

“Poor, poor Lenchen. How you must have suffered! How we both have!

There must have been times when you wished we had never met in the forest that day. “

“Oh no, no,” I said fiercely.

“I never felt that not even in the most wretched and desperate moments.”

He took my hands and kissed them.

I went on: “So I stayed with them and they looked after me and when the child was born.

“The child!” he cried.

“Oh yes, we had a child. She died at birth. I think I was never so unhappy as when they told me. At least, I thought, I shall have her, and I thought I would take a post at the Damenstift and I planned our future together . hers and mine. “

“So we had a child,” he repeated.

“Oh Lenchen, my poor sweet Lenchen.

And Ilse and Ernst . why did they do this? Why should they have done this? I must discover what this means. “

“Where are they now?”

“Ernst is dead. He was ill, you know very ill. Ilse went back to Klarenbock. I heard she married again. But why should they tell me you were dead? What motive was there in this? I shall find Ilse. I must have the truth from her. I will send someone to Klarenbock to bring her here. I want to know from her what this means.”

“She must have had a reason.”

“We’ll find it,” he said.

Then he turned once more to me; he touched my hair and my face as though trying to convince himself that I was really there.

I was so happy to be with him, I could think of nothing beyond the glorious fact that we were together. I was bewildered still groping in the dark, but Maximilian was with me and that for the moment was enough. And I had learned the truth of what happened on the Night of the Seventh Moon; I had taken back those six days of my life; they belonged to me and I had been wantonly deceived.

What could have been the motive of Ilse, Ernst and the doctor? Why should they have deceived me so utterly that they had almost made me doubt my own reason in order that events might appear in the light they wished them to.

Why?

But Maximilian was there, and as happened long ago, I could think of nothing else. So while the moon shone its light into the turret-room I was happy as I had not been since the days of my honeymoon.

There was a light tap on the door and Frau Graben came in carrying -a tray on which was a squat lighted candle, wine and glasses, with a dish of her favourite spiced cakes.

She said, her eyes gleaming with delight: “I’ve brought you these. I thought you’d be hungry. Well, Master Lightning,” she went on.

“You can’t say you’re not old Graben’s favourite now, can you?”

“I never did,” he replied.

She set the tray on the table. She said: “Oh, Miss Trant, I knew how he was ” fretting for you. I could tell. He was never the same again.

He used to be so gay . he was the gay one . always up to tricks, laughing, joking . and then suddenly he changes. It’s a woman, I said. Then poor old Hildegarde Lichen told me. She turned to me. We’d worked at the schloss together in the nursery. She was my under-nurse.

She thought the world of the boys and in particular Lightning here.

And she told me all-about how the little English girl came to the lodge one night and how he was never the same since. It was such a romantic story and how they blew up the lodge so that it would look as though she had died there. “

“Hildegarde told you that?” cried Maximilian.

“Why didn’`t you tell me?

Why didn’`t you? “

“It was a secret, Hildegarde insisted. She told me With her dying breath. And she said, ” Tell no one unless it’s necessary to his happiness, for it is better that he should think her gone. “

“You were always an old meddler,” said Maximilian.

“But how dared you keep this from me?”

“Now don’t scold me. I brought her back, didn’`t I? I planned it all. I went and found her and played the tourist looking for books and making it all seem so natural. All the time I was thinking, I’ll surprise Master Lightning, and how right it was that he should have his surprise on the Night of the Seventh Moon. I’ll have a glass of wine with you, shall I?”

She did not wait for the invitation; she filled three glasses and sat down, sipping, and nibbling one of her spiced cakes.

She talked of how poor Hildegarde had worried about what had taken place in the -hunting lodge. She had made Hildegarde tell her all she knew and Hildegarde knew a great deal. She had been as interested in everything concerning the Prince as Frau Graben herself. She had kept her eyes open. She knew that the young lady was a pupil in the Damenstift when she first come to the lodge, and that when she returned she had been brought out by Ilse and Ernst and that her father had kept a bookshop in Oxford. She knew her name.

“I noted that,” said Frau Graben.

“I liked to know what my boys were up to and this was no ordinary affair. Hildegarde knew that it was different right from the start, she said. That was why she was so upset. She didn’`t like it. And that ceremony she didn’`t like at all. She said it wasn’`t right. The girl was so innocent that she believed it was a true marriage. “

“It was a true marriage,” said Maximilian.

Frau Graben stared at him and then at me.

“Mem Gott}’ she cried.

“It’s not true. It’s one of your larks. I know you, Master Lightning.”

“Dear Graben,” he said solemnly, “I swear to you that I was married to Lenchen in the hunting lodge nine years ago.”

She shook her head and then I saw her lips begin to curl. She had brought me here; she had presented me to him. This was the kind of high drama she liked to provoke. But if we were truly married! I could imagine her delight in the possibilities this was suggesting to her; and for the first time since Maximilian had walked into the room I was fully aware of the complicated situation which confronted us. Until that moment I had thought of little but the fact that Maximilian had come back to me. My reason was vindicated; I had been the victim of a wicked plot but I was not unbalanced. I had imagined nothing and I had regained my husband.

Frau Graben was saying: “It is so, then?”

“It is so,” answered Maximilian.

“And Miss Trant is your wife.”

“She is my wife, Graben.”

“And the Princess Wilhelmina?”

A shadow crossed his face. I believed he had forgotten her existence until that moment.

“She cannot be my wife since I have been married to Lenchen for nine years.”

Frau Graben said: “Mein Gott} This will shake the dukedom What have you done, Maxi? What will happen to us all now?” She chuckled, not without a degree of delight, “But you don’t care, do you? You’re bemused both of you. You don’t see anything but each other. Oh Maxi, you love her, don’t you? It does me good to see you together, that it does. Don’t forget I found her-I brought her to you.”

“You meddling old woman,” he said, “I’ll never forget you brought her back to me.”

“Tomorrow,” she said, her eyes sly, ‘that’ll be the time to face the music. ” She laughed. Tonight is the Night of the Seventh Moon. We mustn’`t forget that, must we? Oh, you’re going to be grateful to me, Maxi and you too. Miss Trant. All these years fancy! And you two pining for each other. I said to Hildegarde, ” You tell me about that room in the hunting lodge” and she told me, for she knew every piece that was in that room. So I said to myself: I’ll make another room here in Klocksburg and tonight we shall put the clock back. We’ll bring the lovers together again. The bridal chamber awaits you, my chicks. You can’t say that old Graben doesn’`t look after you.”

“You brought Lenchen here, Graben,” said Maximilian, ‘and I shall bless you for ever for that. But now we want to be alone. “

“Of course you do, and you’re going to be. I’ve got the bridal chamber ready myself.” She grimaced and tiptoed to the door, looking back as though loath to leave us.

“We always got on like a house afire, didn’`t we Miss Trant? We’ll have some talks.

She shut the door on us and we were in each other’s arms. I knew that he was, as I was, recalling those days in the lodge and the intensity of our need for each other was unendurable.

“Tomorrow we can talk,” he said.

“We will make our plans. We have to consider very carefully what we must do. Of one thing I am certain. We shall never be parted again, whatever may come. But that is for tomorrow.

He opened the door. Frau Graben was waiting there with a candle. We followed her down the stairs and she opened a door. The full moon shining through the window showed me the four-poster bed. It was a faithful reproduction of the room we had shared in the hunting lodge during our honeymoon.