all
growing things.

She forgot Tristram, forgot she was passionately preoccupied with him
and passionately in love, forgot even that she was not alone. She saw
the firelight again, and the pitiful, little figure of her poor, little
brother as he poured over the picture, pointing with his sensitive
forefinger to Pan's shape. She could hear his high, childish voice say:
"See, Cherisette, he, too, is not made as other people are! Look, and he
plays music, also. When I am with _Maman_ and you walk there you must
remember that this is me!"

And Tristram, watching her, knew not what to think. For her face had
become more purely white than usual, and her dark eyes were swimming
with tears.

God! how she must have loved this man! In wild rage he stalked beside
her until they came quite close to the statue in the center of the
star, surrounded by its pergola of pillars, which in the summer were gay
with climbing roses.

Then he stepped forward, with a sharp exclamation of annoyance, for the
pipes of Pan had been broken and lay there on the ground.

Who had done this thing?

When Zara saw the mutilation she gave a piteous cry; to her, to the
mystic part of her strange nature, this was an omen. Pan's music was
gone, and Mirko, too, would play no more.

With a wail like a wounded animal's she slipped down on the stone bench,
and, burying her face in her muff, the tension of soul of all these days
broke down, and she wept bitter, anguishing tears.

Tristram was dumbfounded. He knew not what to do. Whatever was the
cause, it now hurt him horribly to see her weep--weep like this--as if
with broken heart.

For her suffering was caused by remembrance--remembrance that, absorbed
in her own concerns and heart-burnings over her love, she had forgotten
the little one lately; and he was far away and might now be ill, and
even dead.

She sobbed and sobbed and clasped her hands, and Tristram could not bear
it any longer.

"Zara!" he said, distractedly. "For God's sake do not cry like this!
What is it? Can I not help you--Zara?" And he sat down beside her and
put his arm round her, and tried to draw her to him--he must comfort her
whatever caused her pain.

But she started up and ran from him; he was the cause of her
forgetfulness.

[Illustration: "'Zara!' he said distractedly.... 'Can I not help
you?'"]

"Do not!" she cried passionately, that southern dramatic part of her
nature coming out, here in her abandon of self-con