he were not in the presence of a painful drama of life,
perhaps a tragedy. But was the song so pointless to the occasion, after
all, and was the man so abstracted and indifferent as he seemed? For
thus the song ran:

"Oh, the bird in a cage and the bird on a tree
Voila! 'tis a different fear!
The maiden weeps and she bends the knee
Oh, the sweet Saint Gabrielle hear!
But the bird in a cage has a friend in the tree,
And the maiden she dries her tear:
And the night is dark and no moon you see
Oh, the sweet Saint Gabrielle hear!
When the doors are open the bird is free
Oh, the sweet Saint Gabrielle hear!"

VII

These words kept ringing in Jen's ears as she stood again in the doorway
that night with her face turned to the beacon. How different it seemed
now! When she saw it last night it was a cheerful spirit of light--a
something suggesting comfort, companionship, aspiration, a friend to the
traveller, and a mysterious, but delightful, association. In the morning
when she returned from that fortunate, yet most unfortunate, ride, it
was still burning, but its warm flame was exhausted in the glow of
the life-giving sun; the dream and delight of the night robbed of its
glamour by the garish morning; like her own body, its task done, sinking
before the unrelieved scrutiny of the day. To-night it burned with a
different radiance. It came in fiery palpitations from the earth. It
made a sound that was now like the moan of pine trees, now like the
rumble of far-off artillery. The slight wind that blew spread the
topmost crest of flame into strands of ruddy hair, and, looking at it,
Jen saw herself rocked to and fro by tumultuous emotions, yet fuller of
strength and larger of life than ever she had been. Her hot veins
beat with determination, with a love which she drove back by another,
cherished now more than it had ever been, because danger threatened the
boy to whom she had been as a mother. In twenty-four hours she had grown
to the full stature of love and suffering.

There were shadows that betrayed less roundness to her face; there were
lines that told of weariness; but in her eyes there was a glowing light
of hope. She raised her face to the stars and unconsciously paraphrasing
Pierre's song said: "Oh, the God that dost save us, hear!"

A hand touched her arm, and a voice said, huskily, "Jen, I wanted to
save him and--and not let you know of it; that