to play it, but she would do it now
without delay.

CHAPTER VI

THROUGH PURPLE CURTAINS

When Nan made up her mind, she acted with lightning rapidity. She would
force Stuart to an avowal of love that would fix their relation beyond
disturbance by the little singer. She had too fine a sense of values to
permit herself to become entangled in an intrigue.

She could wait, and gain in power for the waiting. Her physician had
told her that Bivens's days were numbered. Stuart had waited twelve
years in silence; he could wait the few months more of her husband's
flickering life.

But on one thing she was determined. Now that another woman had
appeared on the scene she would not live in suspense, she must know
that he loved her still, loved her passionately, madly as she believed
he did. But he must say it. She must hear his voice quiver with its old
fiery intensity. She wished this as she had never longed for anything
on earth, and for twelve years she had lived in a magic world where she
had only to breathe a desire to have it fulfilled.

Stuart had baffled and eluded her on every point when she had thought
he was about to betray his passion. Here was something mere money had
no power to command. Well, she had other powers. She would use them to
the limit. She would no longer risk the danger of delay.

She had no difficulty in persuading Bivens to urge Stuart to visit
their country estate in the mountains of North Carolina. The doctor had
ordered him there to live in the open air.

The young lawyer refused to go at first, but Bivens urged with such
pathetic eagerness he was compelled to accept.

It was a warm beautiful morning the last week in March when he alighted
on the platform of the little railroad station on the estate, and took
his seat beside Nan in her big touring car. The fruit trees were in
full bloom, and their perfume filled the air. The hum of bees and the
song of birds he had known in his boyhood thrilled his heart. He drew a
deep breath of joy, and without a struggle resigned himself to the
charm of it all.

"It's glorious, Nan!" he exclaimed.

"Your coming makes it perfect, Jim," she answered, tenderly, and
turning to the chauffeur said:

"Drive for an hour before going to the house, Collins."

The chauffeur tipped his cap and the throbbing machine shot around a
curve and swept along the river's edge down the green carpeted valley
which stretches out for miles below the ramparts of t