do whatever will bring you comfort."

"There is one thing--yes," she said, and there was the first look of
life in her face. "Mirko, when I saw him last at Bournemouth, played to
me a wonderful air; he said _Maman_ always came back to him in his
dreams when he was ill--feverish, you know--and that she had taught it
to him. It talks of the woods where she is, and beautiful butterflies;
there is a blue one for her, and a little white one for him. He wrote
out the score--it is so joyous--and I have it. Will you send it to
Vienna or Paris, to some great artist, and get it really arranged, and
then when I play it we shall always be able to see _Maman_."

And the moisture gathered again in Francis Markrute's eyes.

"Oh, my dear!" he said. "Will you forgive me some day for my hardness,
for my arrogance to you both? I never knew, I never understood--until
lately--what love could mean in a life. And you, Zara, yourself, dear
child, can nothing be done for you and Tristram?"

At the mention of her husband's name Zara looked up, startled; and then
a deeper tragedy than ever gathered in her eyes, as she rose.

"Let us speak of that no more, my uncle," she said. "Nothing can be
done, because his love for me is dead. I killed it myself, in my
ignorance. Nothing you or I can do is of any avail now--it is all too
late."

And Francis Markrute could not speak. Her ignorance had been his fault,
his only mistake in calculation, because he had played with souls as
pawns in those days before love had softened him. And she made him no
reproaches, when that past action of his had caused the finish of her
life's happiness! Verily, his niece was a noble woman, and, with deepest
homage, as he led her to the door he bent down and kissed her forehead;
and no one in the world who knew him would have believed that she felt
it wet with tears.

When she got to her room she remembered she still carried some note, and
she at last looked at the superscription. It was in Tristram's writing.
In spite of her grief and her numbness to other things it gave her a
sharp emotion. She opened it quickly and read its few cold words. Then
it seemed as if her knees gave way under her, as at Montfitchet that day
when Laura Highford had made her jealous. She could not think clearly,
nor fully understand their meaning; only one point stood out distinctly.
He must see her to arrange for their separation. He had grown to hate
her so much, then, that he could not an