to-night. She would make her life, she thought--her life
that could know no personal love--abound in love for all the world, and
be to all it touched a living, breathing benediction.

As she gazed she suddenly noticed a lighted launch on the little lake,
and an inexplicable prescience disturbed the calm of her musings. She
watched, with an intensity she could not have explained, the gradual
approach of the little craft. What did that boat, or its passenger,
matter to her that she should feel such an acute interest in its
movements? Yet something told her it did matter much, and though she
laughed at her superstition, nevertheless her heart listened to it, and
dared not gainsay its insistent whisper.

A young man, straight and tall and lithe, bounded from the launch and
mounted the terrace steps. She saw his clean-cut profile, his
well-groomed appearance, which even in the moonlight was plainly
evident. She noted the regal bearing of his well-knit figure, and she
caught the delicious aroma of the particular brand of cigar Paul always
smoked, as he passed beneath the balcony where she stood.

She turned in very terror and fled to her rooms, pulling the curtains
closer. She shrank like a frightened child upon the couch, her face
white and drawn with fear--of what, she did not know.

After a time--long, terrible hours, it seemed to her--she parted the
curtains with tremulous fingers and looked out again at the sky, and
shuddered. The virgin nun-face had mysteriously changed--the moon that
had looked so pure and spotless was now blood-red with passion.

Opal crept back, pulling the curtains together again, and threw herself
face downward upon the couch. God help her!

* * * * *

Paul Zalenska lingered long over his dinner that night. He was tired and
thoughtful. And he enjoyed sitting at that little table where his father
perhaps sat the night he had first seen her who became his love.

And Paul pictured to himself that first meeting. He tried to imagine
that he was Paul Verdayne, and that shortly his lady would come in with
her stately tread, and take her seat, and be waited upon by her elderly
attendant. Perhaps she would look at him through those long dark lashes
with eyes that seemed not to see. But there was no special table,
to-night, and the Boy felt that the picture was woefully
incomplete--that he had been left out of the scheme of things entirely.

After finishing his meal, h