right that his
own eyes could hardly support it; he saw the ready smile that came to
the full, delicate mouth whenever he spoke; and instead of being made
happy by all this, he asked himself if it could mean anything except
that she was sorry for him, and wanted to be very polite to him, as she
could be nothing more. His heart sank within him at the thought; he
became silent and constrained; and Alice wondered whether she had not
gone too far in her resolute kindness. "Perhaps he has changed his
mind," she thought, "and wishes me not to change mine." So these two
people, whose hands and hearts were aching to come together, sat in the
same drawing-room talking of commonplace things, while their spirits
grew heavy as lead.

Mrs. Belding was herself conscious of a certain constraint, and to
dispel it asked Alice to sing, and Farnham adding his entreaties, she
went to the piano, and said, as all girls say, "What shall I sing?"

She looked toward Farnham, but the mother answered, "Sing
'Douglas'----"

"Oh, no, Mamma, not that."

"Why not? You were singing it last night. I like it better than any
other of your songs."

"I do not want to sing it to-night."

Mrs. Belding persisted, until at last Alice said, with an odd
expression of recklessness, "Oh, very well, if you must have it, I will
sing it. But I hate these sentimental songs, that say so much and mean
nothing." Striking the chords nervously she sang, with a voice at first
tremulous but at last full of strong and deep feeling, that wail of
hopeless love and sorrow:

"Could you come back to me, Douglas, Douglas,
In the old likeness that I knew,
I would be so faithful, so loving,
Douglas, Douglas, Douglas, tender and true."

There had been tears of vexation in her eyes when her mother had forced
her to sing this song of all others; but after she had begun, the music
took her own heart by storm, and she sang as she had never sung
before--no longer fearing, but hoping that the cry of her heart might
reach her lover and tell him of her love. Farnham listened in transport;
he had never until now heard her sing, and her beautiful voice seemed to
him to complete the circle of her loveliness. He was so entranced by
the full rich volume of her voice, and by the rapt beauty of her face
as she sang, that he did not at first think of the words; but the
significance of them seized him at last, and the thought that she was
singing these words to him ran like