e-worn letters
from Felix Arnault to Richard Keith, which he had found among his
father's papers, was one which described at length a ball in this very
ballroom. Was it in celebration of his marriage, or of his home-coming
after a tour abroad? Richard could not remember. But he idly recalled
portions of other letters, as he stood with his elbow on the mantel
watching Felix Arnault's daughter.

"_Your son and my daughter_," the phrase which had made him smile when
he read it yonder in his Maryland home, brought now a warm glow to his
heart. The half-spoken avowal, the question that had trembled on his
lips a few moments ago in the rose garden, stirred impetuously within
him.

Felice stepped down from the dais where she had been standing, and came
swiftly across the room, as if his unspoken thought had called her to
him. A tender rapture possessed him to see her thus drawing towards him;
he longed to stretch out his arms and fold her to his breast. He moved,
and his hand came in contact with a small object on the mantel. He
picked it up. It was a ring, a band of dull worn gold, with a confused
tracery graven upon it. He merely glanced at it, slipping it
mechanically on his finger. His eyes were full upon hers, which were
suffused and shining.

"Did you speak?" she asked, timidly. She had stopped abruptly, and was
looking at him with a hesitating, half-bewildered expression.

"No," he replied. His mood had changed. He walked again to the window
and examined the clumsy bolt. "Strange!" he muttered. "I have never seen
a face like hers," he sighed, dreamily.

"She was very beautiful," Felice returned, quietly. "I think we must be
going," she added. "Mere will be growing impatient." The flush had died
out of her cheek, her arms hung listlessly at her side. She shuddered as
she gave a last look around the desolate room. "They were dancing here
when my mother died," she said to herself.

He preceded her slowly down the stair. The remembrance of the woman
began vaguely to stir his senses. He had hardly remarked her then,
absorbed as he had been in another idea. Now she seemed to swim
voluptuously before his vision; her tantalizing laugh rang in his ears;
her pale perfumed hair was blown across his face; he felt its filmy
strands upon his lips and eyelids. "Do you think," he asked, turning
eagerly on the bottom step, "that they could have gone into any of these
rooms?"

She shrank unaccountably from him. "Oh no," she crie