d so on and so on.

Sophy listened pleasantly, putting in a word every now and then to show
that she was really attentive. She was thinking all the time how pale
his face was, and how dark and excited his eyes. This last was all the
more noticeable, as of late his eyes had been so dull and faded looking.
Now the pupils almost covered the iris. And she noticed, too, that,
though he helped himself freely from every dish, he ate scarcely
anything. This made her apprehensive. He was so much more apt to be
irritable when he did not eat. Then he suddenly ordered a pint of
champagne.

"Will you have some, too?" he asked her. "But you don't like it, do
you?"

"Sometimes--when I'm thirsty. Not to-night."

"And just send another pint up to my room, Parkson. I shall read late
to-night," he added, as an explanation to Sophy.

In the drawing-room after dinner he was very restless, roaming to and
fro, smoking those great cigarettes, one after the other. He kept
glancing at the clock. Sophy had drawn on a pair of long
gardening-gloves and was peeling the stems of some roses. The butler had
placed a great trayful of them on a low table before her, and as she
peeled the long, thorn-armed stems, she arranged the roses in a crystal
vase. They kept for days longer when stripped of their outer rind in
this way. The tranquil monotony of her movements seemed to get on
Chesney's nerves.

"For God's sake," he said finally, halting near her, "get through with
that business and sing me something."

She sat down at once to the piano and sang some of Schumann's _Lieder_
and soft, melancholy Russian folk-songs--the songs of a people bowed
immemorially by oppression--almost in love with sorrow, as a prisoner
comes to love his prison. She was glad that he had asked her to sing.
Many a time had she played David to his Saul. Music, her singing
especially, always softened him. Now it would be easier to talk with him
of Bobby.

When she paused, he looked up at her from the chair in which he had
stretched himself, his head sunk moodily forward. "By God! You're a
sweet woman," he said.

Sophy rose, and, going over to him, sat on the arm of the big chair.

"I want to talk to you about something, Cecil. Something very important.
Will you be nice to me?"

She had yielded him her hand, and he was looking at it earnestly,
turning it this way and that in his great fingers, which were covered
between the knuckles with a light furze of reddish hair--