Waiting alone in the secret alcove they had both come to know so well, with the remarkable cries of the frolicking children wafting in from outside, Oliver — she who had always seemed so cold! — thought once more of dashing David Wells, the ‘hooded visitor’ in her recurring dream. He was now, according to the message on the dagger, a prisoner in the very castle he had once owned.
   Then, without any warning, came an eerie chill of premonition, and she somehow knew that her heart had been right all along. He was here! “All I have is yours, my Oriental pearl!” he laughed.
   Abruptly, he once again began to woo her with the sensual voice of his Stradivarius, and as it dawned on her that her days of loneliness were over, she wondered if this would be a good time to remind him about the books he had borrowed.