thrilled him in
certain heart or soul labyrinths locked against all other influences. As
Ardea's fingers sought the changing chords he felt vaguely that she was
speaking to him, now scorning, now rebuking, now pleading, but always in
a tongue that he only half comprehended. He stole a glance at his watch,
impatient to come to hand-grips with her and have it over. The suspense
could not last much longer. It was past ten; the Major was dozing
peacefully in his great arm-chair, and Miss Euphrasia yawned decorously
behind her hand.

Ardea lingered lovingly on the closing harmonies of the nocturne, and
when the final chord was struck her hands lingered on the keys until the
sweet voices of the strings had sung themselves afar into the higher
sound heaven. Then she turned quickly and surprised her anesthetized
audience.

"You poor things!" she laughed. "In another five minutes the last one of
you would have succumbed. Why didn't somebody stop me?"

The iron-master said something about the heavy work of the day, and
helped his wife to her feet. The Major came awake with a start and
bestirred himself hospitably, and Miss Euphrasia rose to speed the
parting guests--or rather the two of them who had been invited. In the
drift down the wide hall Ardea fell behind with Tom, whom Cousin
Euphrasia continued to ignore.

"I came to tell you," he said in a low tone, snatching his opportunity.
"I can't sleep until I have fought it out with you."

"You don't deserve a hearing, even from your best friend," was her
discouraging reply; but when they were at the door she gave him a
formal reprieve. "I shall walk for a few minutes on the portico to rest
my nerves," she said. "If you want to come back--"

He thanked her gravely, and went obediently when his mother called to
him from the steps. But on the Woodlawn veranda he excused himself to
smoke a cigar in the open; and when the door closed behind the two
in-going, he swiftly recrossed the lawns to pay the penalty.

The front door of the manor-house was shut and the broad, pillared
portico was untenanted. He sat down in one of the rustic chairs and
searched absently in his pockets for a cigar. Before he could find it
the door opened and closed and Ardea stood before him. She had thrown a
wrap over her shoulders, and the light from the music-room windows
illuminated her. There was cool scorn in the slate-blue eyes, but in
Tom's thought she had never appeared more unutterably beautifu