her. He has received our message by now. Poor dad, he won't sleep
to-night. To-morrow they will all have the news, and on Sunday in church
they will 'be talking about it.'"

"But your voice would have been wasted. Your father would have
reproached himself; he would think he had sacrificed you to his music."

"Which wouldn't be true."

"True or false, he'd think it. Besides, it would be true in a measure."

Evelyn told Owen of her interview with her father that morning, and he
said--

"You acted nobly."

"Nobly? Owen!"

"There was nobility in your conduct."

"He'll be so lonely, so lonely. And," she exclaimed, clasping her hands,
"who will play the viola da gamba?"

"When I bring you back a great singer ... there'll be substantial
consolation in that."

"But he won't close his eyes to-night, and he'll miss me at breakfast
and at dinner--his poor dinner all by himself."

"But you don't want to go back to him? You love me as much as your
father?"

They pressed each other's hands, and, striving to see through the blue
hollow of the night, they thought of the adventure of the voyage they
had undertaken. Spectral ships loomed up and vanished in the spectral
stillness; and only within the little circle of light could they
perceive the waves over which they floated. The moon drifted, and a few
stars showed through the white wrack. Whither were their lives striving?
She had thought that her life in Dulwich must endure for ever, but it
had passed from her like a dream; it had snapped suddenly, and she
floated on another voyage, and still the same mystery encircled her as
before. She knew that Owen loved her. This was the little circle of life
in which she lived, and beyond it she might imagine any story she
pleased.

Her thoughts reverted to the Eastern dreamer, and she realised that she
was living through the tragedy which he had written about a thousand
years ago in his rose garden. She might imagine what she pleased--that
she was going to become a great singer, that artistic success was the
harbour whither she steered, but in truth she did not know. She could
not believe such an end to be her destiny. Then what was her destiny?
All she had ever known was behind her, had floated into the darkness as
easily as those spectral ships; her religion, her father, her home, all
had vanished, and all she knew was that she was sailing through the
darkness without them. Seen for a moment in the light of the high moon,
an