ight
bear her without pain to the nearest hospital--when, suddenly, she
held up a warning finger, beckoning to me that I should listen
closely.

I bent my head to catch the words. There was such authority in the
gesture, and in the eyes an expression so extraordinarily appealing,
and yet so touched with the awe of a final privacy beyond language,
that the doctor stepped backwards on the instant, the needle shaking
in his hand--while I bent down to catch the whispered words that at
once began to pass her lips.

The wind in the poplar overhead mingled with the little sentences, as
though the breath of the clear blue sky, calmly shining, was mingled
with her own.

But the words I heard both troubled and amazed me:

"Help me! For I am in the dark still!" went through me like a sword.
"And I do not know how long."

I took her face in both my hands; I kissed her. "You are with
friends," I said. "You are safe with us, with me--Marion!" And I
apparently tried to put into my smile the tenderness that clumsy
words forswore. Her next words shocked me inexpressibly: "You
laugh," she said, "but I----" she sighed--"I weep."

I stroked her face and hair. No words came to me.

"You call me Marion," she went on in an eager tone that surely belied
her pain and weakness, "but I do not remember that. I have forgotten
names." Then, as I kissed her, I heard her add in the clearest
whisper possible, as though no cloud lay upon her mind: "Yet Marion
will do--if by that you know me now."

There came a pause then, but after it such singular words that I could
hardly believe I heard aright, although each syllable sank into my
brain as with pointed steel:

"You come to me again when I lie dying. Even in the dark I hear--how
long I do not know--I hear your words."

She gave me suddenly then a most piercing look, raising her face a
little towards my own. I saw earnest entreaty in them. "Tell me," I
murmured; "you are nearer, closer to me than ever before. Tell me
what it is?"

"Music," she whispered, "I want music----"

I knew not what to answer, what to say. Can you blame me that, in my
troubled, aching heart, I found but commonplaces? For I thought of
the harp, or of some stringed instrument that seemed part of her.

"You shall have it," I said gently, "and very soon. We shall carry you
now into comfort, safety. You shall have no pain. Another moment
and----"

"Music," she repeated, interrupting, "music as of long ago."

It