It was mid-afternoon when Thayer once more entered the hotel. The proprietor met him at the door.

"This message was just telephoned in, Mr. Thayer. The boy is getting ready to carry it to the cottage."

Thayer tore open the envelope indifferently. Exhausted by the struggle and the shock through which he had been passing, for the time being he felt little interest in any word which could come to him from the outside world. His entire life seemed to him limited to one short hour in one small room, apart from the world and its concerns. That brief episode was too recent and too personal to allow him at once to cast off its impression. In his present mood, it appeared to be the focal point of his entire life, the arena upon which the two warring strains in his blood had met to fight to a finish. The fight had been sharp and fierce; already he was beginning to rejoice that the Puritan had conquered the Slav. Beyond that point, as yet, he was powerless to go. Later, his rejoicing would be increased by the knowledge that in his own words and deeds he had never swerved from a certain loyalty towards Lorimer.

"Mr. Lorimer is—" the proprietor was beginning vaguely.

Thayer's nod was more curt than he realized.

"Mr. Lorimer is dead."

"You don't mean it! When?" The man was visibly startled.

"This morning, between seven and eight o'clock."

"It must have been very sudden?" The accent was plainly interrogative.

"Yes, at the last. He had been quite ill for twenty-four hours. He was overtired with his walk of the day before, and then ate something that disagreed with him. He suffered terribly, and, at the last, heart failure developed." Thayer ended his fable with a deep breath of relief.

"But they had no doctor," the man objected.

Thayer raised his eyes and looked at him steadily for an instant.

"No," he said quietly. "Mr. Lorimer has had a number of such attacks, and Mrs. Lorimer had all the proper remedies. Until within a few moments of the end, there was no indication that this attack was any more serious than the others had been, and there had never before been any tendency to heart failure." He paused for a moment, deliberately challenging another question. Then he added, "If your telephone is not in use, I must send word to Mrs. Lorimer's friends." And he walked away to the telephone closet in the corner of the office.

He called up three numbers in New York. The first one was Mr. Dane's office, and to him Thayer announced the bare fact of Lorimer's death and of Beatrix's need for her parents. His talk with Bobby Dane was longer, and at intervals it became interjectional in its terseness. To Bobby, Thayer went over the story in all its detail, yet in such guarded phrases that no one else, listening, could have gained an inkling of the true cause of Lorimer's death. After the first shock was over, Thayer and Beatrix had discussed the matter fully and in all its bearings. The attendant had his own reasons for wishing to keep the secret, and the butler could be relied upon implicitly. Accordingly, they had decided that there was no need of acquainting the world with the true version of the case, and they had agreed that Bobby should be the one person to be put in possession of all the facts. He was just; he had no sentimental ideals to be dispelled in regard to Lorimer, and he was utterly trustworthy.

Thayer's third message was the shortest of all.

"Not in? Very well. I am Mr. Thayer. Tell him that I will be in his office at ten o'clock on Saturday morning."

It was then late on Thursday afternoon. Thayer had calculated that the Danes would come in, the next day, and that the sleigh which brought them in would also carry him out in season for the night train to New York. There was another illness in the opera company. Faust was to be sung on the following Wednesday night, and Thayer, in sending that last message, had given his tacit consent to singing the part of Valentine. Even in the midst of his trouble, he smiled grimly to himself, as he thought back to that far-off night in Berlin when the chord which closes Valentine's cavatina also closed his long indecision and left him sitting with his face definitely turned towards the artist's life. It had seemed to him then that the decision was threatening to undermine his Puritanism; nevertheless, he had temporized with that Puritanism. In resolving to become an artist, in so far as the possibility of art lay in his keeping, he had likewise resolved to hold himself a man, virile and of steady nerve. To his young enthusiasm, the two ideals had not seemed incompatible. To his maturer judgment, they had appeared in no sense to be at war, yet together they had been by no means easy of attainment. All in all, he had preferred to leave to the recording angel the balancing of his psychological accounts. He had lacked the time and the perspective to do it for himself. But, meanwhile, he believed he recognized the hand of fate in this second summons to sing the part of Valentine. Fate and his old maestro both had declared themselves for opera. Their united will should be done.

That evening was the longest he had ever spent, so long that in reality it lasted until the gray dawn. The eastern sky was tinging itself with yellow when he roused himself from the reverie which had held him since he had left the dinner table. Rising to his feet, he drew himself to the full of his towering height and took a slow, full breath. Then deliberately he pushed his trunk into the middle of the floor and began packing it, with the quiet method which characterized all his personal arrangements. At first, he worked in grim silence; then, by almost imperceptible degrees, his face lighted and he fell to humming over to himself the familiar song,—

Little by little, the humming rose and filled the room, at first the one phrase repeated over and over again; then all at once, deep and resonant, Thayer's full voice came leaping out in the rich Italian words,—

The past was already the past. "Blithe as a knight in his bridal array," Thayer was echoing the call of his future destiny. Because he had won a single battle, there was no reason he should lay down his arms.

He sang it boldly, joyously. He was not forgetful, only hopeful. He would leave to the choice of fate the field in which his mastery should lie. Master he would be at any cost.

For the last time, that little room was echoing with his voice.

His own rooms in New York were echoing with the same song, when Bobby Dane entered them, the next Saturday night.

"Well, at least, you don't sound broken-hearted," he observed, as he took off his coat.

"The sight of you would go far to cure me, if I were," Thayer retorted. His words were light; but his face and his grip on Bobby's two hands contradicted his tone.

"Glad of it," Bobby said flatly. "But tell me about Beatrix. How did the poor girl stand it?"

"Like herself," Thayer answered. "It was enough to shake the nerves of the Winged Victory; but Mrs. Lorimer went through it like a heroine."

"It was D.T.?"

"Yes."

"It was better that you kept the secret," Bobby said thoughtfully, as he dropped into a chair by the piano. He sat silent for a moment while, bending forward, he idly picked out the first few notes of the cavatina on the lowest octave of the bass. Then he added, "I don't see how you managed it, Thayer; but it is a good deed done. Was there any trouble about the certificate?"

"No. It was heart failure, true enough, and there was no need to go into secondary causes."

"I am glad the doctor was a man of sense. If he had been a martinet, it would have been worse for us all. Of course, there is no telling how far people will accept the story; but we may as well try to act as if it were true." There was a pause. Then Bobby inquired, "Well, and now what are you going to do next?"

"Valentine in Faust," Thayer replied briefly.

"The deuce you are! When?"

"Next Wednesday."

Bobby's face fell.

"Oh, I wanted you, myself, for that day. Isn't it rather sudden?"

"So sudden that I didn't half realize it, till I found myself at rehearsal, this morning. It is to be announced in to-morrow's papers, I suppose. Not even Arlt knows it yet."

Bobby meditated for the space of several seconds.

"Thayer, I am delighted," he said then. "I was so afraid your stopping now might mean a permanent break-up in your work. Now you are going into your right field at last. You've been too large for oratorio; you fill altogether too much space, and crowd out the chorus. You need a whole stage to ramp around in. Moreover, if I have any idea what Gounod meant, he had your voice in mind, when he created the part. Go in, and you are sure to win; and not a soul in the city will be gladder of it than I."

Thayers face softened. His life, successful as it was, had been singularly barren of endearments, and Bobby's words touched him keenly. Heretofore, only Arlt had manifested any personal interest in his successes, and Arlt was a true German, chary of his words. Thayer held out his hand to Bobby.

"Thank you, Dane. I believe you," he said.

There was a short silence. Then Thayer added suddenly,—

"What did you want of me for Wednesday?"

Again Bobby's face clouded, and he laughed uneasily.

"Something you can't and must not do, Thayer. I oughtn't to have spoken of it."

"What was it?" Then a new idea crossed Thayer's mind. "Something about Lorimer?"

"Yes, I may as well tell you. We have been telephoning back and forth, all day. They'll be down, Monday night, and the funeral is to be on Wednesday afternoon. Beatrix is leaving all the plans to my uncle; and my aunt, who is a sentimental soul and has no idea of the real state of the case, is insisting that the poor old chap shall be buried with all manner of social honors. It is to be a real function, and she thought it would be the most suitable thing in the world, if you were to sing at the funeral. I knew you wouldn't enjoy doing it, all things considered; but I couldn't say so to my uncle. All in all, it is a relief to have this other affair knock it in the head."

To Bobby, the pause was scarcely perceptible. To Thayer, it sufficed to review the years between his meeting Lorimer in GÖttingen and that last gray dawn in the cottage.

"But it doesn't," Thayer said then.

"You don't mean—?"

"I will sing. We rehearse in the morning, and I have nothing afterwards until evening. What time is the service?"

Bobby Dane's call left Thayer feeling once more at war with himself. Worn out with the long strain of watching over Lorimer, exhausted with the agony of that hour in the cottage, it had been a relief to him, now that his work was ended, to throw himself wholly into the preparations for Faust. The needed rehearsals and the inevitable details of costuming had been sufficient to occupy his tired mind completely, and he had held firmly to his resolve to forget the past two months. He had been able to accomplish this only by getting a strong grip upon his own mind and holding on tightly and steadily; but he had accomplished it. Bobby left him with it all to do over again. In spite of himself, Beatrix's desperate question for "the black, blank years," drowned the familiar words of his cavatina and set themselves in their place,—

"Even black, blank years shall pass."

Impatiently he shut the piano and, sitting down at his desk, began studying aloud the list of stage directions which outlined his acting; but, in the intervals of turning a page, he asked himself over and over again whether any other life could hold a grimmer contrast than the one confronting him, that coming Wednesday afternoon and evening.

Wednesday came at last. Thayer had left his card at the Lorimers' house, the day before; but he had felt no surprise that Beatrix had refused to see him. He caught no glimpse of her until the hour for the funeral, and he felt that it was better so. For the present, their lives must lie in different paths.

As Bobby had predicted, Sidney Lorimer's funeral was a function. Everything about it was above criticism, with the minor exception of the manner in which Lorimer had met his end. Society, black-clothed and sombre-faced, was present, partly from respect to the Danes, partly from a real liking for Lorimer as they had known him at first, partly from curiosity to see whether there were any foundation for the rumors which already were flying abroad. The rumors embraced everything from meningitis to suicide, everything except the truth. And meanwhile, the Lorimers' rooms were transformed into a species of flower show, and, in the midst of the flowers, Lorimer lay asleep, his cheek resting on his hand, his lips curving into the old winning smile they knew so well. For him, as for Thayer, the past was passed and done. For him, too, the future might still be full of promise. Thayer, as he stood beside the man who had been his old-time friend, admitted as much to himself, and all at once the intoning of the solemn ritual ceased to jar upon his ears. For Lorimer, as for himself, the fight was still on. The arena had changed; that was all. Perhaps in the new battle, Lorimer would arm himself with stronger weapons.

Then the intoning stopped, and some one made a signal to Thayer. Simply as a boy, and with a boyish tenderness, he sang the little hymn they had chosen for him. Each man and woman who listened, felt gentler and nobler for his song; but only Beatrix, shut decorously in the room upstairs, away from her dead, realized that, for the passing hour, Thayer had annulled the passion and the pain of those last weeks, and had gone back again to the old, pitiful, protecting love which for years had marked his attitude towards Lorimer.

From Lorimer's funeral, society went home to rest and gossip and exchange its sombre clothing for its most brilliant plumage. Nearly two years before, society had taken Cotton Mather Thayer to its bosom. Now it was making ready to burn much incense in his honor, and its first step in the process was to make his opening night of opera one of the most brilliant events of the winter. With this laudable end in view, the house was packed, and the women present had drawn heavily upon their reserve fund of brand-new gowns which they had been hoarding for the final gayeties of the season.

Thayer, with Arlt at his side, lingered idly in the wings, while the audience listened with ill-concealed impatience to the melodious bargaining between Faust and Mephistopheles. Then the attention quickened, as every bar of the Kermess chorus brought them nearer to the moment for Valentine's coming.

Charm in hand, he came at last, and the applause, caught up to the galleries and tossed back to the floor, echoed again and again through the great opera house. He accepted it quietly, almost indifferently, and stood waiting for the storm to die away, while his keen eyes, sweeping the house, recognized here and there among the jewelled, bare-shouldered women before him the faces of the black-gowned mourners to whom he had sung in the afternoon. The sight brought Beatrix to his mind. He wondered how she was passing the evening, whether, from under the benumbing effects of the blow she had suffered, she were still sending a thought, a hope for success in his direction. Unconsciously to himself, his pulses were tingling and throbbing with the music, and the throb and tingle brought back to him the memory of the pounding of his pulses, that morning in the cottage, only a week before. He had almost yielded to their sway; then he had rallied. He had gone through the shock of Lorimer's death, through the hasty discussion of arrangements which had followed, through the saying good-by, with a calmness that had steadied Beatrix and had been a surprise, even to himself. It was more—He roused himself abruptly to the consciousness that mechanically he had been going through the scene with Wagner, and that the moment for his cavatina had come.

Instinctively he squared his shoulders and raised his eyes. As he did so, he caught sight of Bobby Dane, and the sight recalled to him the half-dismissed thought of Beatrix. During the one measure of introduction, Beatrix and Marguerite, the cottage and the Kermess went whirling together through Thayer's brain, turning and twisting, intermingling and separating again like the visions of delirium. For that one measure, his operatic fate was trembling in the balance. Then the artist triumphed. Steady and clear, yet burdened with infinite sadness, his voice rang out, filling the wide spaces of the great house, filling the smallest heart within it with its throbbing, passionate power.

The house was rocking and ringing with applause, as the song died away; but Thayer heard it with unheeding ears. His old destiny had fulfilled itself. The chord which closed his cavatina had sealed his fame in opera; but his fame was to him as ashes in his mouth. With that same chord, he had wilfully bidden farewell, not to Marguerite, his sister, but to Beatrix, the wife of his friend, Sidney Lorimer. And, as the chord died away, with its death there also died his passionate love. Who could foretell what its resurrection would be? Or when? Or where?