, said it was a good plate and wished
he had gone in for etching. I fear he is like many painters--he
doesn't realize the drudgery and technical labour involved. Let
me know your opinion soon.

"All good wishes,
"Cecil."

Our canary, who rejoices in the name of Richard the Lion-hearted,
chirped for his customary morsel of cake, and I rose to give it to him.
Mac was showing his wife the dragged line in the etching. Having
rationed Richard, I stood looking out of the window. A keen wind was
blowing and fine powdered snow drove over the open lot across the
street. Coming up over the frozen grass I saw a tall figure in a scarlet
cloak. The vigour of her gait deceived me at first, for it was the light
trip of a girl in her teens, and then I saw that it was Mrs. Carville. I
did not speak, but watched her, with lithe figure and features aglow,
cross the street to her home. It seemed to me that I had no right to
call attention to what I saw or imagined. Even if it were true, as my
friend had said, as Mr. Carville himself, in his homely way, had
remarked, that women, even more than girls, are the victims of
evanescent illusions, that they abandon themselves, at times, to quite
impossible and romantic dreams, I should be wise to stand aside. I felt
that, after all, Miss Fraenkel's crystal-clear bromidity would be a
delightful change after so much intense living and introspection. For
that evening, after dinner, as I listened to the music of the
Steersman's Song from the _Flying Dutchman_, it seemed only too likely
that even after all these years, so deathless is passion in some hearts,
the skilled hand of Frank Carville might set a woman's soul vibrating
with some of the old ecstasy.

CHAPTER XV

CONCLUSION

It was a white Yule-tide that year. Late on Christmas Eve I crept
carefully and circuitously up to the house next door and deposited our
little parcel of gifts in the shadow of the porch. In an hour my tracks
were covered. Sleighs passed, in the stealthy fashion of sleighs, the
jingle of harness and bells mingling, the muffled figures of the riders
looking strangely like stuffed effigies in the white radiance of the
reflecting snow. And next morning, when I woke early, snow was still
falling. But at breakfast, rather late in honour of the day, the sky was
swept to a clean, clear transparent azure,