Once on a Time Part 43

"What do you want then?"

"Just dearness," said Belvane.

And now my story is done. With a sigh I unload the seventeen volumes of Euralian History from my desk, carrying them one by one across the library and placing them carefully in the shelf which has been built for them. For some months they have stood a rampart between me and the world, behind which I have lived in far-off days with Merriwig and Hyacinth and my Lady Belvane. The rampart is gone, and in the bright light of to-day which streams on to my desk the vision slowly fades.

Once on a time . .

Yet I see one figure clearly still. He is tall and thin, with a white peaked face of which the long inquisitive nose is the outstanding feature. His hair is lank and uncared for; his russet smock, tied in at the waist, wants brus.h.i.+ng; his untidy cross-gartered hose shows up the meagerness of his legs. No knightly figure this, yet I look upon him very tenderly. For it is Roger Scurvilegs on his way to the Palace for news.

To Roger too I must say good-bye. I say it not without remorse, for I feel that I have been hard upon the man to whom I owe so much.

Perhaps it will not be altogether good-bye; in his seventeen volumes there are many other tales to be found. Next time (if there be a next time) I owe it to Roger to stand aside and let him tell the story more in his own way. I think he would like that.

But it shall not be a story about Belvane. I saw Belvane (or some one like her) at a country house in Shrops.h.i.+re last summer, and I know that Roger can never do her justice.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _Roger Scurvilegs_]