blackness that the few
lights twinkling here and there were more like fallen stars. Presently she
heard a sound. It was her father, returning as silently as he could. She
heard him fumble among the knickknacks on the mantel, and then go away
again. By and by she saw a spot of white light move hither and thither
among the grape arbors. For five or six minutes she watched it dance.
Suddenly all became dark again. She laid her head upon the railing and
conned over the day's events. These were not at all satisfactory to her.
Then her thoughts traveled many miles away. Six months of happiness, of
romance, of play, and then misery and blackness.

"Nora, are you there?"

"Yes. Over here on the balcony. What were you doing down there?"

"Oh, Nora, I'm sorry I lost my temper. But Molly's begun to nag me lately,
and I can't stand it. I went after that book. Did you throw some flowers
out of the window?"

"Yes."

"A bunch of daisies?"

"Marguerites," she corrected.

"All the same to me. I picked up the bunch, and look at what I found
inside."

He extended his palm, flooding it with the light of his pocket-lamp.
Nora's heart tightened. What she saw was a beautiful uncut emerald.

CHAPTER XIV

A COMEDY WITH MUSIC

The Harrigans occupied the suite in the east wing of the villa. This
consisted of a large drawing-room and two ample bedchambers, with
window-balconies and a private veranda in the rear, looking off toward the
green of the pines and the metal-like luster of the copper beeches. Always
the suite was referred to by the management as having once been tenanted
by the empress of Germany. Indeed, tourists were generally and
respectively and impressively shown the suite (provided it was not at the
moment inhabited), and were permitted to peer eagerly about for some sign
of the vanished august presence. But royalty in passing, as with the most
humble of us, leaves nothing behind save the memory of a tip, generous or
otherwise.

It was raining, a fine, soft, blurring Alpine rain, and a blue-grey
monotone prevailed upon the face of the waters and defied all save the
keenest scrutiny to discern where the mountain tops ended and the sky
began. It was a day for indoors, for dreams, good books, and good
fellows.

The old-fashioned photographer would have admired and striven to
perpetuate the group in the drawing-room. In the old days it was quite the
proper thing to snap the family group while they were engaged