ower of
sparks, shot forth one last flame, which brightened the room that had
become for a moment a whole world. The light flashed over the many
rows of books, which made Lilla imagine a vast human audience, all
aglow from a final blaze of genius.

She leaned toward him, staring into his eyes as one who would summon
from a sepulchre something more precious than love.

He understood her, and assented:

"Yes, what a victory, eh? Even on the threshold of death! And even
though the inspiration was the embodiment of pity only! But men before
me--though not so far gone, perhaps--have transmitted to the world the
songs that rose in their hearts as a result of unconsummated, even
unrequited, love. Who knows? That, too, may come just in time. I may
write one more song."

Before her mind's eye there sprang out the full picture of her part in
such a triumph.

Was it not she who would virtually be the creative force? Had he not
become, in these last days of his, a shattered instrument that she,
alone, could make musical again? And her long-thwarted aspirations
coalesced into this desire, in which, it may be, her compassion was
disorganized by egotism, her compunctions swallowed up in ruthlessness.

"You will do it!" she cried softly, leaning closer still, holding his
hand more tightly, blinding him by the glorification of her smile.

Hardly knowing what she was saying, finding at the tip of her tongue
all the arguments that had failed to help her in her griefs, she spoke
of the prodigies accomplished by will, the triumphs of faith over fate,
the miracles of love.

"Of love?" he repeated.

The log on the hearth was ashes. But that morning there had drifted
through the city a message from the country--of a new spring, which
would not be like nature's previous unfoldments, yet could not, for all
its subtle differences, be denied. Was it something like that in
Lilla, or only a tender duplicity born of this new ruthlessness of
hers, that made her press his limp hand against her kindling cheek?

CHAPTER XXIV

It was a romance as nearly incorporeal as mortal romance may be, almost
as though one of the participants had already passed beyond the
sensuous world.

If Brantome was not at home they had the place to themselves. The fire
no longer burned on the hearth; but the sunshine of the lengthening
days conquered the shadows that had lingered here all winter. And now
the wheel chair was rolled to the open