Dar-muth? How he is? He is nice fellow? I
no meeting hime?"

"The best fellow that ever lived, God bless him!" exclaimed the young
man, enthusiastically. "He has the temperament of genius, and he isn't
always there when you want him--I mean, he isn't always in the right
mood; but he's a splendid specimen of a man, and the most likeable
fellow I ever knew--poor fellow!"

"Why you say 'poor fel-low'? He is no happy, no?"

"Well, you see," said the young man, succumbing to those lovely,
pitying eyes, and not observing that they gazed with equal tenderness
at the crimson wine in the cup beside her plate--"you see, he and his
wife are none too congenial, as I said. It makes her wild to have him
write, not only because she wants to cut a figure in London, and he
will always live in some romantic place like this, but she's in love
with him, in her way, and she's jealous of his very desk. That makes
things unpleasant about the domestic hearthstone. And then she doesn't
believe a bit in his talent, and takes good care to let him know it.
So, you see, he's not the most enviable of mortals."

"Much better she have be careful," said the Spanish woman; "some day
he feel tire out and go to lover someone else. Please you geeve me
some more clarette?"

"Here comes Sir Dafyd," said the Englishman, as he filled her glass.
"It has taken him a long time to find out how she is."

The shadow had wholly disappeared from Sir Dafyd's mouth, a faint
smile hovering there instead. As he took his seat the Austrian
Ambassador leaned forward and inquired politely about the state of
Lady Sioned's health.

"She is sleeping quietly," said Sir Dafyd.

PART I.

THE MELODY.

I.

The Hon. Harold Dartmouth was bored. He had been in Paris three months
and it was his third winter. He was young. He possessed a liberal
allowance of good looks, money, and family prestige. Combining these
three conditions, he had managed to pretty thoroughly exhaust the
pleasures of the capital. At all events he believed he had exhausted
them, and he wanted a new sensation. He had "done" his London until it
was more flavorless than Paris, and he had dawdled more or less in the
various Courts of Europe. While in St. Petersburg he had inserted
a too curious finger into the Terrorist pie, and had come very
near making a prolonged acquaintance with the House of Preventative
Detention; but after being whisked safely out of the country under
cover of a friend's