brushing contact of
passers-by. To Paul it seemed very cruel and he was about to pass on
when she stopped him.

"Mr. Burton," she suggested, in a cautiously guarded voice, "I wish you
would send back my letters. I'm stopping at the Plaza."

The man was silent for a moment, then he said simply:

"I have already burned them."

She searched his eyes for a moment, and, seeming satisfied of their
truthfulness, smiled. "That will do just as well. Thank you. How silly
we were to write them, weren't we?"

Paul hurried after his guide, who had been deferentially waiting a few
steps distant, but at the entrance of the music-room he halted
again--and this time his cheeks blanched with a greater astonishment.
There, standing within arm's reach, was Marcia Terroll, though her face
was averted and she did not see him.

"What brings you here?" he asked in a low voice, and as she turned to
face him her hands went spasmodically to her breast.

"I didn't know that you would be here," she said faintly, but she did
not tell him that she had come in response to the same instinct which
draws pilgrims to shrines hallowed by association; because this had been
the temple of his art.

"They have promised," Paul told her, "to let me have fifteen minutes in
there undisturbed--to play my organ for the last time." His eyes met
hers and he added in an earnest undertone, "Won't you go with me,
Marcia?"

The woman's lashes glistened with a sudden moisture. "Are you sure you
wouldn't rather be--quite alone? Isn't it rather sacred to you?"

"That is why I want you," he eagerly declared. "It will be something to
remember afterward."

They went in, and for a moment the girl stood there gasping at the
magnificence of this place, of which she had read descriptions, but
which she had never seen. Then her eyes flooded and, with a sense of
revelation, she forgave him every frailty and fault--even the isolated
horror of longing she had been carrying in her heart. So sensitive a
soul as his could not have been expected to stand out Spartan-bold
against the voluptuary blandishments of such surroundings--and such a
life. He looked at her for a long while and once, unseen by her, he put
out his arms, but caught them back again with a swift gesture and shook
his head. Now he knew in all bitterness what Loraine Haswell and his own
cowardice had cost him--and it was too late.

Loraine Haswell and his own cowardice! He had not fully realized it
before,