`I can easily believe it,' said the Earl.

Mein Herr rose to his feet. `I must leave you now, Miladi,' he said, consulting his watch. `I have another engagement.'

`I only wish we had stored up some extra time!' Lady Muriel said, as she shook hands with him. `Then we could have kept you a little longer!'

`In that case I would gladly stay,' replied Mein Herr. `As it is--I fear I must say goodbye!'

`Where did you first meet him?' I asked Lady Muriel, when Mein Herr had left us. `And where does he live? And what is his real name?'

`We first--met--him--' she musingly replied, `really, I ca'n't remember where! And I've no idea where he lives! And I never heard any other name! It's very curious. It never occurred to me before to consider what a mystery he is!'

`I hope we shall meet again,' I said: `he interests me very much.'

`He will be at our farewell-party, this day fortnight,' said the Earl. `Of course you will come? Muriel is anxious to gather all our friends around us once more, before we leave the place.'

And then he explained to me--as Lady Muriel had left us together--that he was so anxious to get his daughter away from a place full of so many painful memories connected with the now-cancelled engagement with Major Lindon, that they had arranged to have the wedding in a month's time, after which Arthur and his wife were to go on a foreign tour.

`Don't forget Tuesday week!' he said as we shook hands at parting. `I only wish you could bring with you those charming children, that you introduced to us in the summer. Talk of the mystery of Mein Herr! That's nothing to the mystery that seems to attend them! I shall never forget those marvelous flowers!'

`I will bring them if I possibly can,' I said. But how to fulfil such a promise, I mused to myself on my way back to our lodgings, was a problem entirely beyond my skill!