stars, but rather of languorous than disquieting
influences, and the talk had flowed along in serenity, until gradually,
under the spell of the music the two younger members of the trio fell
musingly silent.

Tollman had chosen a program out of which breathed a potency of passion
and allurement. Voices rich with the gold of love's abandon sang the
songs of composers, wholly dedicated to love's own form of expression.

Stuart Farquaharson's cigar had gone out and he sat meditative in the
shadows of the terrace--himself a shadowy shape, with his eyes fixed
upon Conscience, and Conscience, too, remained quiet with that
unstirring stillness which bespeaks a mood of dreams. Something in the
air, subtle yet powerful, was working upon them its influence.

"Eben seems to be in a sentimental mood this evening," suggested
Farquaharson at last, bringing himself with something of a wrench out of
his abstraction and speaking in a matter-of-fact voice. He remembered
belatedly that his cigar had gone out and as he relighted it there was a
slight trembling of his fingers.

"Yes, doesn't he?" Mrs. Tollman's laugh held a trace of nervous tremor,
too. "And I remember saying once that that was just as possible as the
idea of Napoleon going into a monastery."

"Are we going to swim before breakfast to-morrow?" asked the man,
distrusting himself just now with topics touching the past and
sentiment.

"Suppose we walk down to the float and have a look at the state of the
tide," she suggested. "Then as Ira would say we can 'fore-lay' for the
morning."

CHAPTER XXV

AS they went together down the steep path, there was no flaw in the
woman's composure and no fault in the lightness of her manner, but when
they reached the float, with the dark water fall of mirrored stars she
turned abruptly so that she stood face to face with the man. In the
light of the crescent moon he saw that her eyes were wide and full of a
deep seriousness. For a moment she did not speak and recognizing the
light of fixed resolve and the attitude of steeling herself for some
ordeal, he also refrained from words until she should choose her moment.

There was an ethereal quality in the beauty of her pale face,
jet-crowned in the starlight, and a Jeanne d'Arc gallantry in the
straightness of her slender figure. When at last she began to speak it
was in a low voice, vibrant with repression, but unwavering and full of
purpose.

"Stuart," she said, "I am goin