aid Schubert vehemently. "That music--it
was--the devil!"

The count laughed again lightly. He held out his hand.

"Good night," he said.

IV

A soft haze hung over Zelitz. The moonlight, filtering through it,
touched the paths and shrubs with shifting radiance and lifted them out
of shadow. Under the big trees the darkness lay black, but in the open
spaces it had given way to a gray, elusive whiteness that came and went
like a still breathing of the quiet night.

A young girl, coming down one of the winding paths, paused a moment in
the open space to listen. The hand that held her trailing, shimmering
skirts away from the gravel was strong and supple, and the face thrown
back to the moonlight wore a tense, earnest look; but the dark eyes in
their curving lids were like a child's eyes. They seemed to laugh
subtly. It may have been that the moonlight shifted across them.

A young man, standing in the shadow of the trees, smiled to himself as
he watched her. He stepped from beneath the trees and crossed the open
space between them.

The girl watched him come without surprise.

"It is a beautiful night, Herr Schubert," she said quietly as he stood
beside her.

"A wonderful night, my lady," he answered softly.

She looked down at him.

"Why are you not in the castle, playing?" she demanded archly.

"The night called me," he said.

She half turned away.

He started forward.

"Do not go," he breathed.

She paused, looking at him doubtfully.

"I came to walk," she said. She moved away a few steps and paused again,
looking back over her shoulder. "You can come----"

He sprang to her side, and they paced on in silence.

She glanced at him from under her lids.

His big face wore a radiant, absent-minded look. The full lips moved
softly.

"What are you thinking of?" she said swiftly.

He flushed and came back to her.

"Only a little song; it runs in my head."

"Hum it to me," she commanded.

He flushed again and stammered:

"Nein, nein; it is not yet born."

Her eyes were on the shifting light.

"Will you play it to me when it is done?" she asked softly.

"You know that I will."

She waited a moment.

"You have never dedicated a song to me," she said slowly. "There are
the four to my father--but he is the count; and the one last year for
Marie--why to Marie?--and one for them all. But not one least little
song for me!" The words had dropped under her breath. Her dark eyes were
ve