hateful," sighed the girl. Jean moved away from her
and went to the window. Hilaire was limping across the terrace
towards the garden steps. When he was gone out of sight Jean came back
into the room.

"My brother is unhappy too. The woman he loved died. Oh, Olive, are we
to be lonely always because the law will not give me a divorce from
the woman who was never really my wife, never dear to me or near to me
as you are? Joy is within our reach, a golden rose on the tree of
life, and it is for you to gather it or to hold your hand. Don't
answer me yet for God's sake. Wait!"

He went to the piano and opened it.

Rain ... rain dripping on the roof through the long hours of night,
and the weary moaning of the wakeful wind. Thronging memories of past
years, past youth, past joy, past laughter echoing and re-echoing in
one man's hungry heart. Light footsteps of children never to be born
... and then the heavy tread of men carrying a coffin, and the last
sound of all--the clanging of an iron door....

The grave ... the grave ... it held the boy who had loved her, and
presently, surely, it would hold this man too, sealing his kind lips
with earth, closing his brown eyes in an eternal darkness.

He played, as thousands had said, divinely, not only with his hands
but with his soul. The music that had been a work of genius became a
miracle when he interpreted it, and indeed it seemed that virtue went
out of him. His face was drawn and pale and a pulse beat in his cheek.
Olive, gazing at him through a blur of tears, knew that she had never
longed for anything in her life as she longed now to comfort this pain
expressed in ripples, and low murmurings, and great crashing waves of
the illimitable sea of sound. Her heart ached with the pity that is a
woman's way of loving, and as he left the piano she rose too. He
uttered a sort of cry as she swayed towards him, and clasped her in
his arms.

"I love you," he said, his lips so close to hers that she felt rather
than heard the words.

CHAPTER XII

Jean came to the villa a little before noon on the following day.
Hilaire, who was in the library, heard his voice in the hall calling
the dogs, heard him whistling some little song tune as he opened and
shut all the doors one after the other.

"'_O l'amor e' come un nocciuola
Se non se apre non si puo mangiarla--_'"

"Hilaire, where are you? I thought I should find you on the terrace
this fine morning. Where is