Three years; again the autumn leaves lay on the grass; again the roses shed their leaves and left the thorns; again the golden sunlight lay over the earth as it did that autumn three years gone when the tragedy of sorrow fell between Ronald Valchester and the dawning happiness of his life.

In one of the most palatial hotels of New York a lady sat in her luxurious parlor a lovely morning in that sunny autumn. She was young and beautiful—so beautiful that the eye never wearied of gazing on the light of the large, dark eyes, the dainty contour of the cheek and throat, and the delicate, lovely coloring of the scarlet lips curved like Cupid's bow. That rich tinting of the lips was all the color in her face. The cheek was pale and clear, the brow was creamy-fair, and so transparent you could see the blue veins outlined clearly in the temples. The abundant chestnut hair, with a glint of gold in its brownness was drawn back in waving masses from the thoughtful brow and arranged in rich confusion of braids and ringlets fastened with a comb of gold and pearl. She wore a morning gown of royal purple velvet trimmed with snowy swansdown, and lingered near the fire as if the chill in the autumn air made itself felt even amid the luxurious comfort of her surroundings.

The door opened and an old gentleman entered with an arm-full of papers. The lady looked up with a gentle smile.

"Ah! professor," she cried, "you have not turned newsboy, I hope?"

The handsome old gentleman, with his gray hair and slightly foreign face, laughed genially as he laid his burden down on the small reading table and wheeled it to her side.

"Ah, my dear, only read these!" he exclaimed, enthusiastically. "Your first appearance was a perfect success. All New York is at your feet."

A slight, sad smile came over the beautiful face with its subtle touch of melancholy.

"So they praise me," she said, carelessly. "Tell me what they say, professor."

"Parblieu! I could not begin to tell you," said the old gentleman. "You must read the papers."

She glanced at the formidable heap with an expression of dismay.

"I really have not the time," she said. "I have to study my part for to-night. I will just look at one, however. I suppose one will be a fair epitome of all the rest."

"Yes, about that," he replied. "They are all unanimous in praising you. They declare that Madam Dolores is the queen of the lyric stage."

"They are very kind," replied Madam Dolores, carelessly, with the languid air of one who is accustomed to praise, and almost indifferent to it.

She took up at random a morning paper, smelling freshly of printer's ink, and ran her eyes over its columns. Several columns were devoted to a description of the brilliant first appearance and splendid success of the lovely prima donna who had just come to New York from Europe with all the prestige of a brilliant foreign reputation fresh upon her.

The professor sat down and dived eagerly into the papers, while Madam Dolores rapidly gleaned the contents of the one she held. Presently she looked around at her companion with an eager light in her dark eyes and a sudden flush on her dark cheeks.

"Professor," she said, pointing one taper finger to a paragraph, "here is a book I should like to read. Will you send out and get it for me?"

The professor looked at the words under her finger.

"Poems by R. V.," he read; "certainly, my dear," rising, then at the door he turned and said, "who is R. V., my child?"

"Some American poet," said Madam Dolores, carelessly, with her head turned away.

The door closed between them and a long, long sigh quivered over the lips of the beautiful prima donna with the sorrowful name, Dolores. She hid her face in her beautiful hands.

"His poems," she murmured, almost inaudibly. "It will be almost like meeting him face to face. Oh, Ronald, Ronald!"

You would not have thought, to see that slender figure bowed so sorrowfully there, that all New York was raving over her beauty and her genius. But it was true. Madam Dolores, as she called herself, had been induced to come to America by a New York manager who wished to bring out an opera by an author who desired to remain unknown for the present.

It was rumored that the gentleman had already achieved fame as a poet, but beyond that fact, which the manager did not deny, no one even remotely guessed the name. Neither money nor pains had been spared to bring the opera out successfully. Madam Dolores, who had just completed a successful starring tour abroad, was engaged at immense expense to bring it out. The result was—success! Laurels for the brow of the composer, and new laurels for the brow of the singer.

Yet no smile of triumph touched the fair face of the lovely queen of song as she sat there waiting. It was full of a wistful pathos that sometime deepened into pain. It was full of poetry and passion and sorrow. There was no light of gladness in the large and bright dark eyes, yet they were both brave and tender. It was only when she was singing that any brightness came into the grave, sad face.

Then she lost herself like a true artiste in the part she sang.

She looked up quickly as the professor entered with the book for which she had sent him, her white hand trembled as she took the beautiful, richly-bound volume.

"Thank you," she said, and her voice was so husky and low that the professor, her teacher and adviser, looked at her anxiously.

"Dolores, your voice sounds hoarse," he said. "I fear you will not be in voice for to-night."

"Never fear," she replied in a clearer tone, and then she turned away from him, and while he pored over the papers, glorying in the praises they showered on his gifted ward, she sat silent in the great velvet arm-chair with the beautiful volume shut tightly between her folded hands. She was not quite strong enough to open it yet. It seemed like a message from the dead. Ronald Valchester was as one dead to her forever, yet the best part of her lost lover, the heart's deep tenderness, the imperishable, proud, poetic soul seemed throbbing beneath the warm clasp of her hand.

It was several minutes before she could open the book. She, who had always loved music and poetry so dearly, sat trembling with her lover's poems in her hands and could not read them. She was dizzy—there was a mist before her eyes. The luxurious room seemed to fade before her, giving place to the green hills and dales of her old Virginia home.

She felt the cold winds whispering among the trees and lifting the careless curls from her brow, she smelt the "violets hidden in the green," she recalled the old, simple, lonely life which had been glorified for a little while by Ronald Valchester's love. Then with a start she came back to the present. Of that life and of that lover there remained to her only a memory now.

"And this," she said, opening the beautiful book and trembling all over as she read the dainty verses into which her lost lover had poured all the poetry and passion of a gifted mind and tender heart.

She read on and on. They touched her strangely, these gems of thought and feeling.

Some were very sad and tender—some seemed to have poured straight from Ronald's heart into her own. It seemed as if he had written them for her—for her only.

She became quite lost in them, and oblivious to everything else; she did not hear the professor steal out and close the door gently behind him. The outer world had no place in her thoughts for awhile.

She started when a hand was laid upon her head, and looked up with a cry, but it was only the old professor's wife, who was like a mother to her.

"Oh, forgive me, darling," said the sweet old lady; "I did not mean to startle you. But only look at these flowers!"

She put a bouquet into the prima donna's hand—an exquisite collection of rare and odorous flowers. There was not a scentless leaf or flower in the bouquet. The delicate, living fragrance floated deliciously through the room.

"He sent them—the author of the opera himself," cried Mrs. Professor, delightedly. "He is coming with the manager to call on you this afternoon."

"Very well," said Madam Dolores, resignedly. "Chere maman, please tell my maid to put the flowers in water, and call me when it's time to dress."

"Why, my dear, it's time now, this minute. You have been lost in that book for hours! Twice I looked into the room, and went out again because you were so absorbed I hadn't the heart to disturb you. But now, really, there isn't another minute to lose. I've told Fanchette to lay out a handsome dress for you—and, dear, I think it would be a graceful compliment to the author to wear a few of these flowers in your hair."

"Very well," said Madam Dolores again, as she rose and passed into the dressing-room, still clasping the precious book in her hand.

"What will madame wear?" inquired the trim French maid.

"Anything; it does not matter," was the careless reply, as Madam Dolores threw herself into a chair to have her hair rearranged, and opened her book again.

She could not bear to lose a minute from its pages.

Fanchette had the true French taste for style and elegance. She selected a robe of black lace and black satin, embroidered with jet. Then she took some fragrant white rose-buds from the author's bouquet and fastened them at the front of the square corsage, and tied a black velvet ribbon around the slender column of the white throat. She wore no ornament except the pearl cross that swung from the velvet ribbon, and a diamond on her finger. No costume could have enhanced the star-like beauty of the queen of song more superbly. The lustrous satin set off the creamy fairness of cheek and throat and brow exquisitely, and made the soft darkness of eyes and hair more lovely by the contrast.

But Madam Dolores was so impatient she forgot to glance into the long, swinging mirror when Fanchette said she was "finished."

She took up R. V.'s poems and went back to the parlor, hoping to get a minute more for reading before her visitors came.

So when Professor Larue ushered Manager Verne and the author into the room, Madam Dolores had utterly forgotten their existence.

She was half-buried in a great, velvet chair, her cheek in the hollow of one small hand, the dark, fringed lashes almost sweeping her cheek as she pored over the blue-and-gold volume that lay open on her knee.

They were fairly in the house before she heard them; then she rose, with a deep, beautiful blush that faded instantly into marble pallor; for, glancing instinctively past the manager, she saw a tall, handsome man with blue-gray eyes like twilight skies, and dark hair thrown carelessly back from a high, white brow. She heard the manager say, courteously:

"Madam Dolores, allow me to present to you Mr. Valchester, the composer of the opera over which all New York has gone wild with delight."

Madam Dolores murmured some indistinct words in reply, and made a low bow to the author, but she did not offer him her hand. It hung at her side, still mechanically grasping the book of poems.

Mr. Valchester complimented and congratulated her on her successful appearance last night, and then thanked her in eloquent, well-chosen terms for the part she had taken in making his venture such a signal success.

Both were grave and courteous, and calm. No one who witnessed the meeting would have suspected that they had parted only three years ago, broken-hearted and longing for death.

In that moment of quiet recognition each believed that the other had outlived the passion which a little while ago had seemed the all in all of life.

Then the manager excused himself and went out with the professor.

The author and the singer were left alone in the luxurious parlor to entertain each other. They sat silently a moment; then Mr. Valchester said, calmly:

"You were reading, Madam Dolores?"

She looked down at the book in her hand, and the color rushed into her cheeks as she answered:

"Yes."