e passionate forms imply
All music and all silence held thereby;
Deep golden locks, her sovereign coronal;
A round reared neck, meet column of Love's shrine
To cling to when the heart takes sanctuary;
Hands which forever at Love's bidding be,
And soft-stirred feet still answering to his sign:--
These are her gifts, as tongue may tell them o'er.
Breathe low her name, my soul, for that means more.

Her heart beat wildly and her colour came and went, but, with
difficulty, she controlled herself until he reached the end. When she
rose, he rose also, dropping the book.

"Mrs. Lee--Edith!"

"Yes," she said, with a supreme effort at self-command, "it is a pretty
name, isn't it?" She was very pale, but she offered him her hand. "I
really must go now," she continued, "for I am tired. Thank you--and
good-night."

Alden did not answer--in words. He took the hand she offered him, held
it firmly in his own, stooped, and kissed the hollow of her elbow, just
below the sleeve.

XII

Asking--Not Answer

[Sidenote: No Guarantee]

"She's married, and he isn't dead, and they're not divorced. She's
married and he isn't dead, and they're not divorced." Rosemary kept
saying it to herself mechanically, but no comfort came. Through the long
night, wakeful and wretched, she brooded over the painful difference
between the woman to whom Alden had plighted his troth and the beautiful
stranger whom he saw every day.

"She's married," Rosemary whispered, to the coarse unbleached muslin of
her pillow. "And when we're married--" ah, it would all be different
then. But would it? In a flash she perceived that marriage itself
guarantees nothing in the way of love.

Hurt to her heart's core, Rosemary sat up in bed and pondered, while the
tears streamed over her cheeks. She had not seen Alden since Mrs. Lee
came, except the day she had gone there to tea, wearing her white muslin
under her brown alpaca. There was no way to see him, unless she went
there again--the very thought of that made her shudder--or signalled
from her hill-top with the scarlet ribbon.

[Sidenote: Hugging her Grief]

And, to her, the Hill of the Muses was like some holy place that had
been profaned. The dainty feet of the stranger had set themselves upon
her path in more ways than one. What must life be out in the world, when
the world was full of women like Mrs. Lee, perhaps even more beautiful?
Was everyone, married