d in the world--and then
suddenly he lost all hope of her and borrowed from Palestrina to tell
about it, and the last time she climbed trees it was plump on up into
Heaven that she climbed, and from hell below, or pretty close to it,
there arose the words "And climb trees" like a solemn ecclesiastical
amen.

It was an astounding performance, almost demoniac in its cleverness and
in its power to move the hearer.

Lucy's eyes were filled with tears.

"I wish he wouldn't," she said.

There was quite a long silence, but as we did not hear him moving
about, he probably sat on at the piano, for presently, in a whisper,
you may say, more to himself than to us, he sang that Scotch song,
"Turn ye to me," which to my ear at least stands a head and shoulders
taller and lovelier than any folk song in all the world, unless it's
that Norman sailor song that Chopin used in one of the Nocturnes.

"The waves are dancing merrily, merrily,
Ho-ro, Whairidher, turn ye to me:
The sea-birds are wailing, wearily, wearily,
Horo Whairidher, turn ye to me.

"Hushed be thy moaning, love bird of the sea,
Thy home on the rocks is a shelter to thee;
Thy home is the angry wave, mine but the lonely grave,
Horo Whairidher, turn ye to me."

Lucy rose abruptly and left the room. I could hear her whispering to
him, pleading.

Surely he must have sung that song to her when she was only the little
girl with blue eyes over the fence, and it must have had something to
do with making her love him. But the qualities of his voice that could
once make her heart beat and fire her with love for him could do so no
more. He had left, poor fellow, only the power to torture her with
remorse and make her cry.

XV

The next day I kept a riding engagement with Lucy, but she didn't.

"She's gone for a walk with John," said Evelyn, who had come out of the
house to give me Lucy's messages of regret and apology.

"Lucy gone walking!" I exclaimed. "Have the heavens fallen?"

"Sometimes I think they have," said Evelyn. "But you know more about
that than I do."

"Know more about what?"

"Haven't you noticed?"

I shook my head.

"Why, John is all up in the air about something or other, and Lucy is
worried sick about him. I thought probably she'd told you what the
trouble was. I've asked. She said probably money had something to do
with it; and that was all I could get out of her. Come down off that
high horse and talk to m