t another word she fled into the
drawing-room.

"What is it now?" wondered the General, little knowing that the touch of
his burning forehead had sent a swift electric thrill through her from
foot to head.

In hot wrath he followed her to the drawing-room, only to hear divinely
sweet chords. The Duchess was at the piano. If the man of science or the
poet can at once enjoy and comprehend, bringing his intelligence to bear
upon his enjoyment without loss of delight, he is conscious that the
alphabet and phraseology of music are but cunning instruments for
the composer, like the wood and copper wire under the hands of the
executant. For the poet and the man of science there is a music existing
apart, underlying the double expression of this language of the spirit
and senses. _Andiamo mio ben_ can draw tears of joy or pitying laughter
at the will of the singer; and not unfrequently one here and there in
the world, some girl unable to live and bear the heavy burden of an
unguessed pain, some man whose soul vibrates with the throb of passion,
may take up a musical theme, and lo! heaven is opened for them, or they
find a language for themselves in some sublime melody, some song lost to
the world.

The General was listening now to such a song; a mysterious music unknown
to all other ears, as the solitary plaint of some mateless bird dying
alone in a virgin forest.

"Great Heavens! what are you playing there?" he asked in an unsteady
voice.

"The prelude of a ballad, called, I believe, _Fleuve du Tage_."

"I did not know that there was such music in a piano," he returned.

"Ah!" she said, and for the first time she looked at him as a woman
looks at the man she loves, "nor do you know, my friend, that I love
you, and that you cause me horrible suffering; and that I feel that I
must utter my cry of pain without putting it too plainly into words. If
I did not, I should yield----But you see nothing."

"And you will not make me happy!"

"Armand, I should die of sorrow the next day."

The General turned abruptly from her and went. But out in the street he
brushed away the tears that he would not let fall.

The religious phase lasted for three months. At the end of that time the
Duchess grew weary of vain repetitions; the Deity, bound hand and foot,
was delivered up to her lover. Possibly she may have feared that by
sheer dint of talking of eternity she might perpetuate his love in this
world and the next. For her own sak