time to them.

"What did I say in my ravings?" she cried to herself, "What did he
hear?"

"Nun?" said the Kapellmeister.

"I see now what hurt you," said Kaya, without raising her eyes, "You
thought I wanted to repay your kindness that can never be repaid; that
I was narrow and little, and was too proud to take from your hands what
you gave me. Forgive me."

The Kapellmeister crossed the room and sat down on the chair that the
nurse had left. He said nothing, and Kaya felt through her closed lids
that he was looking at her. "How shall I ask him?" she was saying to
herself, "How shall I put it into words when perhaps he understood
nothing after all?"

"If you think your voice is there," said the Kapellmeister, "fresh, and
not too strained for the high notes, why you can try it now. If it
goes all right, I daresay we could announce 'Siegfried' for the end of
the week."

"Will you give me the note?" said Kaya, "Is it F#, or G, I forget?"

"I will hum you the preceding bars where Siegfried first hears the
bird." Ritter began softly, half speaking, half singing the words in
his deep voice, taking the tenor notes falsetto. "Now--on the F#. The
bird must be heard far away in the branches, and you must move your
head so--as it flutters from leaf to leaf."

Kaya lifted herself from the pillows until she sat upright, supporting
herself with one hand. She began to sing, and then she stopped and
gave a cry. "It is there!" she said pitifully, "I feel it, but it
won't come!--I can't make it come! It is as if there were a gate in my
throat and it was barred!"

Tears sprang to her eyes. She opened her lips farther, but the sound
that came was strange and muffled; and she listened to it as if it were
some changeling given to her by a mischievous demon in exchange for her
own.

"That isn't my voice," she said, "You know as well as I--it never
sounded like that before! What is it? Tell me--"

The Kapellmeister laughed a little, mockingly: "I told you, child," he
said, "I warned you. Don't look like that! When you are stronger, it
will come with a burst, and be bigger and fresher than ever before.
Siegfried must wait for his bird, that is all."

Kaya clasped her throat with both hands as if to tear away the
obstruction: "I will sing--I will!" she cried, "It is there--I feel it!
Why won't it come out?" She gave a little moan, and threw herself back
on the pillows.

The Kapellmeister stooped suddenly; a loo