aper and sent it to Anne's room, with strict
orders to his man not to leave it unless she were quite alone. The
best of men have their vanities; the idea that the superior Mary
Denbigh or the satirical Miss Bargarny might witness the offering's
arrival was insupportable.

Anne was alone and unfolded the large square package with much
curiosity. It was one of those albums that the young ladies of her day
loved to possess; indeed, so far, she had been the only girl in Bath
House without one, and had read the flattering verses in several with
some envy. This tribute was sumptuously bound in brown calf embossed
with gold, and all the leaves were delicately tinted. She turned over
the pale greens and pinks, blues and canaries, with that subtle
indefinable pleasure that colour gives to certain temperaments. She
had not glanced at the servant, and fancied the album a present from
Lady Constance. When she saw the signature on the first page she
stared, for Lord Hunsdon was the last person she would have suspected
of cultivating the muse. She began the sonnet with a ripple of
laughter, but paled before she finished. Trifling as it was she
recognised it as the work of Byam Warner. She could never be mistaken
there. It resembled nothing of his that she knew, but the grace of the
verse, the fine instinctive choice of words, the glitter and sweep of
phrase, belonged to him and none other. Her heart leaped as she
wondered if it were not the first bit of verse he had ever written
while sober. And she had inspired it! The thought brought another in
its train and she went suddenly to her window and stared through the
jalousies at the dazzling sunlight on the palms, for the first time
seeing nothing of the beauty of Nevis.

The poem had been written from himself to her. A phrase or two not
intended for Hunsdon's unsuspecting eye assured her of that. It was
not an old sonnet furbished up to fit the purpose of a friend. And
fragile as the thing was, still it was poetry--and he had written it
when sober--and to her----

She repeated this discovery many times before she could give shape to
the greater thought building in her brain. It was a beginning, a
milestone. Might it not be within her compass to influence him so
indelibly that his muse would continue to wake at her call, at the
mere thought of her, with no aid from that foul hag of drink, which
of late had almost made her hate his poetry as the work of a base
alliance? She believed