her reply for
posting. Her nurse and companion, an elderly woman with a natural
aptitude for silence and discretion, was Banneker's partner in the
secret. The third member of the conspiracy was the physician who came
once a week from Angelica City because he himself was a musician and
this slowly and courageously dying woman was Royce Melvin. Between them
they hedged her about with the fiction that victoriously defied grief
and defeated death.

Camilla Van Arsdale got up from her couch and walked with confident
footsteps to the piano.

"Ban," she said, seating herself and letting her fingers run over the
keys, "can't you substitute another word for 'muffled' in the third
line? It comes on a high note--upper g--and I want a long, not a short
vowel sound."

"How would 'silenced' do?" he offered, after studying the line.

"Beautifully. You're a most amiable poet! Ban, I think your verses are
going to be more famous than my music."

"Never that," he denied. "It's the music that makes them."

"Have you heard from Mr. Gaines yet about the essays?"

"Yes. He's taking them. He wants to print two in each issue and call
them 'Far Perspectives.'"

"Oh, good!" she cried. "But, Ban, fine as your work is, it seems a
terrible waste of your powers to be out here. You ought to be in New
York, helping the governor put through his projects."

"Well, you know, the doctor won't give me my release."

(Presently he must remember to have a coughing spell. He coughed
hollowly and well, thanks to assiduous practice. This was part of the
grim and loving comedy of deception: that he had been peremptorily
ordered back to Manzanita on account of "weak lungs," with orders to
live in his open shack until he had gained twenty pounds. He was
gaining, but with well-considered slowness.)

"But when you can, you'll go back and help him, even if I'm not here to
know about it, won't you?"

"Oh, yes: I'll go back to help him when I can," he promised, as heartily
as if he had not made the same promise each time that the subject came
up. There was still a good deal of the wistful child about the dying
woman.

Out from that forest hermitage where the two worked, one in serene
though longing happiness, the other under the stern discipline of loss
and self-abnegation, had poured, in six short months, a living current
of song which had lifted the fame of Royce Melvin to new heights: her
fame only, for Banneker would not use his name to the words t