izon.

Swinging along the road outside the park, the half-formed plan to visit
the overseer left him, and purposeless he climbed the hill to Chestnut
Ridge. Something in the occasion of his home-coming after a two years'
absence--his mother's reference to his marriage, his remembrances of
Anne Lennox--had brought back to his face its habitual expression of
sadness. And more than he would have acknowledged was a disquietude
caused by his instant resentment of the existence of Dermott McDermott.
Never in his life had he felt more strongly the need for companionship.
He had been loved by many women. He had never been believed in by any.

Passionate, proud, intolerant, full of prejudice, conscious by
twenty-six years' experience of a most magnetic power with women, he
came to the edge of the far wood as lawless a man, in as lawless a mood,
as the Carolinas had ever seen--a locality where lawless men have not
been wanting.

Suddenly, through the twilight, he heard a voice--a woman's
voice--singing, and by instinct he knew that the singer was alone and
conscious of nothing save the song.

At the top of the rise, under a group of beeches, with both arms
stretched along a bar fence, a girl stood, the black of her hair in
silhouette against the gold of the sky. He noted the slender grace of
her body as she leaned backward, and listened to her voice,
Heaven-given, vibrant, caressing--_juste_, as the French have
it--singing an old song.

He had heard it hundreds of times cheapened by lack of temperament, lack
of voice, lack of taste; but as he listened, though little versed in
music, he knew that it was a great voice that sang it and a great
personality which interpreted it. With the song still trembling through
the silence the singer turned toward him, and, man of the world and
many loves as he had been, an unknown feeling came at sight of her.

A flower of a girl--"of fire and dew," delicate features, nose
tip-tilted, a chin firmly modelled under the rounded flesh, and eyes
bright with the wonder and pride of life. She wore a short-waisted black
frock, scant of skirt and cut away at the neck. It was in this same
frock that the Sargent picture of her was painted--but that was years
afterward; and although she was motionless, one knew from her slender
figure and arched feet that she moved with fire and spirit. Her hair was
very dark, though red showed through it in a strong light, and her
cheeks had the dusky pink of an Oct