"Will you permit me to see what author engages your attention?" said Ronald Valchester; and the singer quietly laid the book in his hand.

He opened it, and she smiled very faintly as she saw the sensitive color mount to his cheeks.

"I presume they are your own poems, Mr. Valchester?" she said; and he shivered at the sweetness of her low voice.

The rushing tide of memory poured over his soul overwhelmingly. He lifted his eyes and looked fully at the beautiful woman.

"Yes, they are mine," he answered, trembling as the beautiful dark eyes met his own.

As they held his glance a moment he saw how grave and sad they were, and the white brow suggested lines he had somewhere read:

"Ah, Mr. Valchester," she said, lightly, it seemed to him, "I told you long ago that you were a poet, and you denied it."

He bent toward her eagerly, his blue-gray eyes growing bright and dark with excitement.

"Then it really is you, Lina?" he cried. "I thought—I believed it was so, but I was afraid to speak."

His deep voice quivered with emotion.

Of the two she seemed much the calmer.

Only the marble pallor of her cheek showed her intense repressed agitation.

"Yes, it is Lina," she said, with apparent calmness. "Are you surprised, Mr. Valchester?"

"Lina, we have mourned you as dead," he said, unsteadily.

"There were few to mourn me," she replied, and there was a note of bitterness in the musical voice.

There was a moment's embarrassed silence. Valchester twirled the leaves of the book in his hand. Jaquelina looked at the floor.

"Tell me something of the Earles—and my uncle," she said. "It is so long—three years—since I have heard."

"The Earles are in New York—they came expressly to hear you sing last night," he replied.

"They did not know——" she said, then paused, abruptly.

"That Madam Dolores was little Lina?" he said; "no, but in the first moment when you came upon the stage we were struck by the resemblance. Violet was positively agitated, yet she refused to entertain the idea that it could really be you. You see she had always felt convinced that you were dead, or that"—he paused, and she could see the shudder that shook the strong, handsome form—"you had met a more terrible fate."

"And you—did you believe in my identity?" she asked, calmly, and a little curiously.

"Yes," he answered, unfalteringly. "I knew there was no other face or voice on earth like yours."

"You must have been surprised?" she said.

"I was," he answered. "Only think how strange it is, Lina. We who parted under such sad and terrible circumstances three years ago, to meet again in this way. To think that you of all others should be the one to bring out the opera on which I have labored so long."

"I did not know that you were the author—you must believe that, Mr. Valchester! I should not have undertaken it had I only known!" she exclaimed, hurriedly and earnestly.

He looked at her, the heavy sadness on his face deepening as he saw the lines of pain drawn around the delicate, scarlet lips.

"Lina, were you so proud?" he asked.

"I did not know it was pride," she said, simply. "I was only thinking that—that it were so much better if we had never met again."

She did not know what a pathetic heart-cry there was in the words, but Ronald understood. He rose from his seat and before she could prevent him knelt humbly at her feet.

"Lina, you are quite right," he said, "I tried to keep myself from coming, but I could not. Can you forgive me for inflicting this pain upon you?"

She did not answer, and he took the white hand that hung listless by her side and pressed it to his lips.

"I could not keep myself from coming," he repeated; "I could not still the fever and thirst of my heart. Last night I did not sleep one hour. The knowledge that you were alive and so near me almost maddened me with mingled joy and pain. Ah! Lina, my lost love, you must forgive me for coming this once. I meant to be brave and calm. I thought it might not pain you as it did me. I thought you might have learned not to care."

The hot, passionate tears he could not repress, fell on her white hand, but she did not speak one word. There was nothing she could say. She had not "learned not to care."

She knew that her heart was beating with a fierce, wild joy because she had met him again, but she knew and faced the knowledge with brave, uncomplaining silence, that when he passed out of her life again the unhealed wound in her heart would only bleed anew.

"I thought you might have forgotten," he went on, out of his bitter anguish, "but I see now that you still remember."

"I remember—all," she said, through white lips. "It was such a happy summer—it would not be easy to forget."

"And it pains you to remember it," he said, reading her heart by the light of his own.

She did not answer, but there came into her mind those sad words of Tennyson:

She drew her hand from his clasp, and rose, pallid, beautiful, mournful, her rich and somber draperies rustling as she moved away from him.

"Mr. Valchester, do not be angry, but it would be better for you if you would go," she said, bravely.

"Better—for me?" he said, rising, and looking at her with haggard, weary eyes.

"For us both, then," she answered with patient truthfulness, though the color rose for a moment to her cheek.

"Not to see you again?" he said, questioningly.

"It would be better so," she answered, "unless you have changed your convictions," and he could not help seeing the trembling hope that came into her eyes. "Oh! Ronald, have you never changed in all these years? Do you still hold me bound to that terrible man by a law man cannot repeal?"

Her calmness had broken down. The anguish of that wild and sudden appeal thrilled through his heart. He had no words to answer her.

He saw the dark eyes gazing at him through a mist of tears, the white roses trembled on her breast with the quick beating of her heart. He could not answer the question.

With a stifled moan he turned from the sight of her sorrowful beauty, and rushed from the room, while the beautiful singer fell like a broken lily to the floor and prayed to die.