he
came early, she welcomed him with shining eyes; if he were late, this
incomprehensible person bestowed upon him exactly the same smile and
glance she would have given had he come two hours before.

"I have kept you waiting for me, I am afraid," he said one day, when he
had kept an engagement he had made for ten o'clock at a quarter of
twelve.

That morning she had been studying; not tones, but German Church music,
and already she had realized, unformulatedly, the solace in the exercise
of a great gift; had found that she could forget trouble in the world of
inspired work; not for long, perhaps, but long enough to have peace of
mind restored to her and strength to go on for another day.

"It didn't matter," she said. "I practised. One forgets one is waiting
then."

Finally there arose in him an absurd jealousy of this gift of hers, of
the thing which seemed to console her even for his absence.

"I shall learn to hate your music," he said one night, when she had
drawn herself away from him to listen intently to the song of a
nightingale in the pines.

"Don't do that!" she said. "Ah, don't do that! Don't you see that it is
all I have for my own in life; all I shall ever have!"

And with some hidden, mental connection between his words and the act,
she began to sing in her great, lovely voice:

"Ask nothing more of me, sweet,
All I can give you I give.
Heart of my heart, were it more,
More shall be laid at your feet.
Love that should help thee to live,
Song that should bid thee to soar.
All I can give you I give;
Ask nothing more, nothing more."

She asked, neither by word nor look, for any expression concerning the
song; but as the last note died away seated herself beside him, chin in
hand, looking far past him into the night.

At two of the next morning he awakened with a start. He was alone in his
own rooms at Ravenel. Looking around in the half-light of the window, he
put his head back on the pillow with the air of one awakened from a
feverish dream. But sleep had vanished for the night. Conscience was
with him. The time had come for the reckoning; some settlement with
himself was required.

Where was he going, and where was he taking Katrine Dulany? Marriage was
out of the question. A person of his importance did not make a
mesalliance. He owed a duty to all the Ravenels who had preceded him, to
those who would follow. To marry suitably was the first duty in l