floated away into piano and pianissimo Denver braved the
light to see her.

She was standing by the piano, swaying like a flower to the music; and a
lamp behind made her face like a cameo, her hair like a mass of gold.
That was all he saw in the swift, stolen moment before he retreated in a
panic to his cave. It was she, the beautiful woman that the seeress had
predicted, the one he should fall in love with! She had won his heart
before he even saw her, but how could he hope to win her? She was a
singer, an artist as Mother Trigedgo had said, and he was a hobo miner.
He stood by his cavern looking down on the town and up at the moon and
stars and the words of her song came back to his ears in a continual,
haunting refrain.

"Ah! smile on our enchantment,
Night of Love, O night of love!
Ah, Ah! Ah, Ah! Ah, Ah! Ah, Ah!"

It floated away in a lilting diminuendo, a joyous, mocking refrain; and
long after the night was quiet again the music still ran through his
head. It possessed him, it broke his sleep, it followed him in dreams;
and with it all went the vision of the singer, surrounded like St.
Cecilia with a golden halo of light. He woke up at dawn with a fire in
his brain, a tumult of unrest in his breast; and like a buck when he
feels the first sting of a wound he turned his face towards the heights.
The valley seemed to oppress him, to cabin him in; but up on the cliffs
where the eagles soared there was space and the breath of free winds. He
toiled up tirelessly, a fierce energy in his limbs, a mill-race of
thoughts in his mind, and at last on the summit he turned and looked
down on the house that sheltered his beloved.

She was the woman, he knew it, for his heart had told him long before he
had thought of the prophecy; and now the choice between the gold and
silver treasures seemed as nothing compared to winning her. Of all the
admonitions which had been laid upon him by the words of the Cornish
seeress, none seemed more onerous than this about the woman that he
would love.

"You will fall in love with a beautiful woman who is an artist," Mother
Trigedgo had written, "but beware how you reveal your affection or she
will confer her hand upon another."

On another! This woman, whom he had worshipped from the moment he had
seen her, would flaunt him if he revealed his love! That was the thought
which had tortured him and driven him to the heights, where he could
wrestle with his problem