n like herself, who had just consented to be
a man's wife; but it was impossible to her to regard this as anything
but an aping of things which at other times had a solemn meaning. She
found herself gazing at Geraldine as one does at some singular piece of
mechanism with a frivolous purpose. And it was not only the individuals
that impressed her thus; these two represented life and the world. She
had strange, cynical thoughts, imaginings which revolted her pure mind
even whilst it entertained them. No endeavour would shake off this
ghastly clairvoyance. She was picturing the scene of Geraldine's
acceptance of the offer of marriage; then her thoughts passed on to the
early days of wedded life. She rose, shuddering, and moved about the
room; she talked to drive those images from her brain. It did but
transfer the sense of unreality to her own being. Where was she, and
what doing? Had she not dreamed that a hideous choice had been set
before her, a choice from which there was no escape, and which, whatever
the alternative she accepted, would blast her life? But that was
something grave, earnest, and what place was there for either
earnestness or gravity in a world where Geraldine represented womanhood
wooed and about to be wedded? There was but one way of stopping the
gabble which was driving her frantic; she threw open the piano and began
to play, to play the first music that came into her mind. It was a
passage from the Moonlight Sonata. A few moments, and the ghosts were
laid. The girls still whispered together, but above their voices the
pure stream of music flowed with gracious oblivion. When Emily ceased,
it was with an inward fervour of gratitude to the master and the
instrument, To know that, was to have caught once more the point of view
from which life had meaning. Now let them chatter and mop and mow; the
echo of that music still lived around.

Hood had not returned when they sat down to tea. Jessie began to ask
questions about the strange-looking man they had met in company with
him, but Mrs. Hood turned the conversation.

'I suppose you'll be coming with the same tale next, Jessie,' she said,
with reference to Geraldine.

'Me, Mrs. Hood? No, indeed; I haven't had lessons from Emily for
nothing. It's all very well for empty-headed chits like Jerry here, but
I've got serious things to attend to. I'm like Emily, she and I are
never going to be married.'

'Emily never going to be married?' exclaimed Mrs. Hood,