to-night?"

"Never did the music ever mean so much as it did to-night," he said,
sitting down.

"What did it mean?"

"Everything. All the beauty and the woe of existence were in the music
to-night."

Their thoughts wandered from the music, and an effort was required to
return to it.

"Do you remember," she said, with a little gasp in her voice, "how the
music sinks into the slumber motive, 'Hark, beloved;' then he answers,
'Let me die'?"

"Yes, and with the last note the undulating tune of the harps begins in
the orchestra. Brangaene is heard warning them."

They sat looking at each other. In sheer desperation she said--

"And that last phrase of all, when the souls of the lovers seemed to
float away."

"Over the low rim of the universe--like little clouds."

"And then?"

He tried to speak of his ideas, but he could not collect his thoughts,
and after a few sentences he said, "I cannot talk of these things."

The room seemed to sway and cloud, and her arms to reach out
instinctively to him, and she would have fallen into his arms if he had
not suddenly asked her what had been decided at Sir Owen Asher's.

"Let me kiss you, Evelyn," he said, "or I shall go mad."

"No, Ulick, this is not nice of you. I shall not be able to ask you to
my room again."

He let go her hand, and she said--

"I'm not going to marry Sir Owen, but I must not let you kiss me."

"But you must, Evelyn, you must."

"Why must I?"

"Do you not feel that it is to be?"

"What is to be?"

"I do not know what, but I have been drawn towards you so long a
while--long before I saw you, ever since I heard your name, the moment I
saw that old photograph in the music-room, I knew."

"What did you know?"

"When I heard your name it called up an image in my mind, and that image
has never wholly left me--it comes back often like a ghost."

"When you were thinking of something different?"

"I am your destiny, or one of your destinies."

Her eyes were fixed eagerly upon him; his darkness and the mysteries he
represented attracted her, and she even felt she could follow. At the
same moment his eyes seemed the most beautiful in the world, and she
desired him to make love to her. While enticing, she resisted him, now
more feebly, and when he let go her hands she sat looking at him,
wondering how she was to get through the evening without kissing him....
She spoke to him about his opera. He asked her if she were going to sing
it, and s