ey, echoes from "Boheme" and "Pagliacci"; then
drifted into improvisation and played her heart into it
magnificently--a heart released to happiness. The still air of the
room filled with wonderful, golden sound: a song like the song of
a mother flying from earth to a child in the stars, a torrential
tenderness, unpent and glorying in freedom. The flooding,
triumphant chords rose, crashed--stopped with a shattering
abruptness. Laura's hands fell to her sides, then were raised to
her glowing face and concealed it for a moment. She shivered; a
quick, deep sigh heaved her breast; and she came back to herself
like a prisoner leaving a window at the warden's voice.

She turned. Cora and Corliss had left the room. Richard was
sitting beside a vacant chair, staring helplessly at the open
door.

If he had been vaguely conscious of Laura's playing, which is
possible, certainly he was unaware that it had ceased.

"The others have gone out to the porch," she said composedly, and
rose. "Shan't we join them?"

"What?" he returned, blankly. "I beg your pardon----"

"Let's go out on the porch with the others."

"No, I----" He got to his feet confusedly. "I was thinking---- I
believe I'd best be going home."

"Not `best,' I think," she said. "Not even better!"

"I don't see," he said, his perplexity only increased.

"Mr. Corliss would," she retorted quickly. "Come on: we'll go and
sit with them." And she compelled his obedience by preceding him
with such a confident assumption that he would follow that he did.

The fugitive pair were not upon the porch, however; they were
discovered in the shade of a tree behind the house, seated upon a
rug, and occupied in a conversation which would not have disturbed
a sick-room. The pursuers came upon them, boldly sat beside them;
and Laura began to talk with unwonted fluency to Corliss, but
within five minutes found herself alone with Richard Lindley upon
the rug. Cora had promised to show Mr. Corliss an "old print" in
the library--so Cora said.

Lindley gave the remaining lady a desolate and faintly reproachful
look. He was kind, but he was a man; and Laura saw that this last
abandonment was being attributed in part to her.

She reddened, and, being not an angel, observed with crispness:
"Certainly. You're quite right: it's my fault!"

"What did you say?" he asked vacantly.

She looked at him rather fixedly; his own gaze had returned to the
angle of the house beyond which the oth