t to listen.

The silence of the night grew more intense, there were millions of
stars, small and great, and the moon now shone amidst them alone, "of
different birth," divided from them for ever as he was divided from
this woman, whose arm touched his as they walked through the
darkness, divided for ever, unable to communicate his soul to hers.
Did she understand what he was feeling--the mystery of their lives
written in the stars, sung by the nightingale and breathed by the
flowers? Did she understand? Had the convent rule left her sufficient
sensibility to understand such simple human truths?

"How sweetly the tobacco plant smells!" she said.

"Yes, doesn't it? But what is the meaning of our story? My finding
you at Dulwich--Evelyn, have you ever thought enough about it? How
extraordinary that event was, extraordinary as the stars above us; my
going down that evening and hearing you sing? Do you remember the
look with which you greeted me--do you remember that cup of tea?"

"It was coffee."

"And then all our meetings in the garden under the cedar-tree?"

"You used to say we looked like a picture by Marcus Stone when we sat
under it."

"Never mind what we looked like. Think of it! Of our journey to
Paris, and my visit to Brussels to hear you sing."

"And Madame Savelli, who wouldn't let me speak to you; she said I
might tire my voice."

"Yes, how I hated her and Olive that day! You sang 'Elizabeth,' and
when you walked up, to the sound of flutes and clarionettes,'
seemingly to the stars, there was something in the way you did it
that put a fear into my heart. It was all predestined from the
beginning."

"So you believe, Owen, that the end is fated, and that I was created
to come back after many wanderings to help these poor little crippled
boys?"

"Is that the meaning of it all, Evelyn?"

"Maybe--who knows?--that meaning as well as another." And through the
dusk he could see her eyes shining with something of their old light.

"Was it fated from the beginning that I should only, meet you here to
part with you again? Is that the meaning you read in the song of the
nightingale, in the stare of the moon and the perfume of the garden?
There is a meaning, Evelyn, in our lives for certain, but are you
reading it aright?"

For a moment the meaning of their lives seemed clear to them. Life
had a meaning! for a moment, they were both sure of it; they had met
for something, there was a design in life, and th