he appeared at the entrance, and greeted
him with a very sweet and simple smile, but laid her finger on her
lips; and so slipped back into the room again, but left Paul's heart
beating strangely and fiercely. Then the Lady Beckwith returned, and
said in a whisper to Paul that it was a day of suffering for Helen,
and that she could not bear the light. So she seated herself near him,
and Paul touched his lute, and sang songs, five or six, gentle songs
of happy untroubled things, like the voices of streams that murmur to
themselves when the woods are all asleep; and between the songs he
spoke not, but played airily and wistfully upon his lute; and for all
that it seemed so simple, he had never put more art into what he
played and sang. And at last he made the music die away to a very soft
close, like an evening wind that rustles away across a woodland, and
moves to the shining west. And looking at the Lady Beckwith, he saw
that she had passed, on the wings of song, into old forgotten dreams,
and sate smiling to herself, her eyes brimming with tears. And then he
rose, and saying that he would not be tedious, put the lute aside, and
they went out quietly together. And the Lady Beckwith took his hand in
both her own and said, "Sir Paul, you are a great magician--I could
not believe that you could have so charmed an old and sad-hearted
woman. You have the key of the door of the land of dreams; and think
not that I am ungrateful; that you, for whose songs princes contend in
vain, should deign to come and sing to a maiden that is sick--how
shall I repay it?" "Oh, I am richly repaid," said Paul, "the guerdon
of the singer is the incense of a glad heart--and you may give me a
little love if you can, for I am a lonely man." Then they smiled at
each other, the smile that makes a compact without words.

Then they went down together, and there was a simple meal set out;
and they ate together like old and secure friends, speaking little;
but the Lady Beckwith told him somewhat of her daughter Helen, how she
had been fair and strong till her fifteenth year; and that since that
time, for five weary years, she had suffered under a strange and
wasting disease that nothing could amend. "But she is patient and
cheerful beneath it, or I think my heart would break;--but I know,"
she added, and her mouth quivered as she spoke, "that she can hardly
see another spring, and I would have her last days to be sweet. I
doubt not," she went on, "the go