g with song after song, now simply, now
with rich embroidery and caprice.

"Who is it playing?" said Otto, in a whisper.

"It _was_ Paderewski!" said Constance between laughing and crying. "Oh,
Otto, everybody's been at work for it!--everybody was so
marvellously keen!"

"In Paris?"

"Yes--all your old friends--your teachers--and many others."

She ran through the names. Otto choked. He knew them all, and some of
them were among the most illustrious in French music.

But while Connie was speaking, the stream of sound in the distance sank
into gentleness, and in the silence a small voice arose, naively,
pastorally sweet, like the Shepherd's Song in "Tristan." Otto buried his
face in his hands. It was the "Heynal," the watchman's horn-song from
the towers of Panna Marya. Once given, a magician caught it, played with
it, pursued it, juggled with it, through a series of variations till,
finally, a grave and beautiful modulation led back to the noble dirge of
the beginning.

"I know who wrote that!--who must have written it!" said Otto, looking
up. He named a French name. "I worked with him at the Conservatoire
for a year."

Constance nodded.

"He did it for you," she said, her eyes full of tears. "He said you were
the best pupil he ever had."

The door opened, and Mrs. Mulholland's white head appeared, with
Falloden and Sorell behind.

"Otto!" said Mrs. Mulholland, softly.

He understood that she called him, and he went with her in bewilderment,
along the passage to the studio.

Falloden came into the sitting-room and shut the door.

"Did he like it?" he asked, in a low voice, in which there was neither
pleasure nor triumph.

Connie, who was still sitting on the stool by the fire with her face
turned away, looked up.

"Oh, yes, yes!" she said in a kind of desperation, wringing her hands;
"but why are some pleasures worse than pain--much worse?"

Falloden came up to her, and stood silently, his eyes on hers.

"You see"--she went on, dashing tears away--"it is not his work--his
playing! It can't do anything--can it, for his poor starved self?"

Falloden said nothing. But she knew that he felt with her. Their scheme
seemed to be lying in ruins; they were almost ashamed of it.

Then from the further room there came to their ears a prelude of Chopin,
played surely by more than mortal fingers--like the rustling of summer
trees, under a summer wind. And suddenly they heard Otto's laugh--a
sound of deligh