And as I sat back watching the reclining lion grow fainter and fainter, I still felt I was dreaming.
I was seated in the courtyard in Milton Harrington's house and telling him about my morning's adventure. I had asked Maria to look in now and then on Felicity and if there was any need to send for me. Maria had nodded, giggling. There must have been speculation about my visits to Milton's house.
He listened to my account of what had happened and clearly did not like it very much. I imagined he was a little piqued because there was a man in the neighbourhood as influential in his sphere as Milton was in his.
"You mean you went out in a boat with this man!"
"Well, I went out on another occasion with a man in a boat. Because his name was Milton Harrington does that make it all right?"
"Of course it does."
"You see, it seemed feasible and I did not want to leave any stone unturned."
"So you went out and met this mysterious gold miner."
"It was very odd—the most extraordinary thing that has ever happened to me. When I stood on the beach and he said he was Magnus Perrensen, which, as I told you, was the name of the man my ancestress was going to marry, I just felt as though I were dreaming... or I had been transported back in time. It was miraculous and then I discovered that he had descended from that man and he knew all that had happened... all that was in the journal because the story had been handed down from generation to generation in his family."
"And what happened then?"
"We just talked and talked ... He wanted us to stay to lunch but I was thinking of Felicity. I didn't want to upset her. So we came back. Don't you think it is the most extraordinary thing that we met like that?"
"It's a little too extraordinary," he said. "I don't like it much."
"You don't like it because you weren't there and it doesn't concern you."
"It does concern me if it concerns you. I want to know more about this visitant from the past."
"He's not from the past. He has just descended. Oh, it is the strangest thing. I never thought of anything like this happening."
"You seem to be in a daze and you have been all the evening."
"I can't stop thinking of it."
"He has become very affable all of a sudden. I have always heard that he did not like people trespassing on his island."
"It was rather exceptional circumstances."
"I shall find out what I can about him."
"'What do you mean?"
"I don't like these mysterious people. He comes here every now and then... He is supposed to be fabulously wealthy; he owns the only gold mines that are really producing these days. He must be something of a phenomenon."
"And if there are any of those about, you want to be the only one.
"Naturally. I hope you wont make a habit of going off with strangers. Promise to consult me before you do anything rash again."
"The suggestion for rashness might easily come from you."
"That is different."
"I see." I smiled at him. I was glad to see him sitting there. I still thought of the anxiety I had suffered when I had known he was on the sea bed and there were sharks in the vicinity.
"By the way," he went on. "Magda Manuel wants you to dine with her and suggests I take you over."
"I shall look forward to that."
"The evening after tomorrow. Felicity is invited if she is well enough."
I shook my head. "She still doesn't want to meet people. Do you think she is getting better?"
"I think it takes a long time to recover from such an experience."
"I'll ask her. In any case I shall be delighted to come."
He drove me back to the hotel in his carriage.
When he said good night, he added: "By the way I should like to take another look at that map."
"The map? But we've been there. There's nothing there."
"Still. I'd like to have a look at it again."
"Just as you like. I'll give it to you next time I see you."
I went to my room. I thought at once of the map. I would get it out so that I remembered it tomorrow. I kept it at the back of the drawer, I suppose because Ann Alice had done the same.
I went to the drawer. The map was not there.
I could not believe it. I had not taken it out and I never put it anywhere else.
It was very strange.
I turned out the drawer but I could not find the map. How very odd! I must have put it somewhere else. But where? I would make a thorough search in the morning.
I found sleep difficult. I kept going over that moment on the beach when he had said: "I am Magnus Perrensen."
I knew it was all logically explained, but somehow I could not accept the logical explanation. It was almost as though I had been brought here for a purpose and that purpose was to meet Magnus Perrensen.
I could easily believe that I was Ann Alice, that she had led me here because she wanted me to meet her lover, to live the life which she would have lived if she had not died so tragically, so violently on that last night she had written in her journal.
We had been brought together for a purpose. What purpose? What purpose could there be? It was more or less certain now that I was in love—physically in love—with Milton Harrington. I was excited by him; I loved to spar conversationally with him; I felt I could have died of fright when I had pictured him at the bottom of the sea. Was that love? I could have been sure it was but for Raymond. I loved Raymond too. I trusted Raymond. Did I not trust Milton? Perhaps not entirely and yet there was even an excitement in mistrust. Raymond would be a faithful husband. Would Milton? There was the shadow of Magda Manuel already to give me cause for speculation. I was sure there had been a deep relationship of some sort between them. Life with him would be a stormy one. With Raymond it would be gentle; 1 should be at peace. What did I want? I was unsure.
And now here was Magnus Perrensen. I had seen him only once but how many times had I thought of that other Magnus. 1 felt that I knew him. I had lived through those pages in the journal as though they were real. To some extent I was Ann Alice.
Life was becoming more and more complicated.
It was inevitable that night that I should dream. I was in the walled-up room and I was sitting at the dressing table writing in my journal what had happened to me that day. I was Ann Alice and I was listening all the time for a footstep on the stairs.
I saw the words clearly: "I thought 1 heard a noise. Footsteps ... I can hear voices... Something is going on down there. They are coming Then I heard the step on the stairs. I looked at the key in the door and it suddenly fell out of the keyhole. 1 heard breathing behind the door which was being forced open.
I screamed and awoke damp with sweat to find myself lying under my mosquito net. I was someone who had died a hundred years ago and had been reborn. I was Ann Alice as well as Annalice. Fantasy was still with me. She had willed me to come here... and here I was. This was what she wanted.
I stared at my door. It was being gently opened.
For a moment I thought I was still in the dream. I expected to see the wicked stepmother there with her lover, and the lover would have a gun in his hands.
"Felicity!" I cried.
She looked like a ghost in her white nightgown, with her hair loose about her shoulders.
"I heard you cry out," she said.
She came to my bed and I murmured: "It... was a nightmare."
"So you have them, too."
"We all do at times, I suppose."
She laughed suddenly. "This is in reverse," she said. "Me... coming to comfort you."
I felt a tremendous relief sweeping over me. Felicity was more like her old self than I had seen her for a long time.
I took her back to her room and sat by her bed. We talked awhile and finally she slept.