now, and Chloe drew the girl towards the grand piano which stood by one
of the big latticed windows. "Sing to us at once, Iris, before you have
your coffee. Will you?"

"Of course I will." She seated herself as she spoke. "What shall it be?
Cherry, you know all my songs. What do you want to-day?"

After due consideration Cherry gave her verdict for "the song about the
lady in the wood;" and although both Mrs. Carstairs and Iris rallied her
on the mournfulness of her choice, Cherry stuck to her guns; and to
judge from the rapt expression in her big brown eyes as the singer
prophesied the lonely and tragic fate of poor unhappy Melisande, the
idea of that fate proved exquisitely soothing to the youthful listener.

Anstice's supposition had been correct. Iris Wayne could sing well. Her
voice, a clear mezzo-soprano, had been excellently trained, and in its
purity and flexibility gave promise of something exceptional when it
should have attained its full maturity. She accompanied herself
perfectly, in nowise hampered by the lack of any music; and when she had
brought the song to a close, Anstice was sincere in his request for
another.

"I've just got some new songs," said Iris, twisting round on the stool
to face her hostess. "A book of Indian love-lyrics. Shall I sing you one
of those?"

And without waiting for an answer she turned back and began to play an
accompaniment which subtly suggested the atmosphere of the East,
accentuated by the sound of the bells of some wayside Temple pealing
through the dusty, sun-baked land.

"The Temple bells are ringing----"

With the first line of the song Anstice was back in the hideous past,
back in the fatal Temple which had proved the antechamber to the halls
of Death ... he heard again the chatter of native voices, smelt the odd,
indescribable perfume of the East, felt the dread, the impotent horror
of that bygone adventure in the ruined Temple of Alostan....

The drawing-room in which he sat, bright with chintz, sweet with the
fragrance of hyacinths, faded away; and he saw again the dimly lighted
hut in which he and Hilda Ryder had spent that last dreadful night. He
heard her voice imploring him to kill her before the men should rush in
upon them, saw the anguish in her eyes as she understood that no help
was forthcoming from the world without; and he knew again the great and
unavailing remorse which had filled his soul when he realized that Hilda
Ryder had died too so