The room within seemed dark, but
there came from it a waft of the fragrance of flowers; and Paul heard
low voices talking together, and knew that Margaret spake; in a moment
she appeared at the entrance, and greeted him with a very sweet and
simple smile, but laid her finger on her lips; and so slipped back into
the room again, but left Paul's heart beating strangely and fiercely.
Then the Lady Beckwith returned, and said in a whisper to Paul that it
was a day of suffering for Helen, and that she could not bear the light.
So she seated herself near him, and Paul touched his lute, and sang
songs, five or six, gentle songs of happy untroubled things, like the
voices of streams that murmur to themselves when the woods are all
asleep; and between the songs he spoke not, but played airily and
wistfully upon his lute; and for all that it seemed so simple, he had
never put more art into what he played and sang. And at last he made the
music die away to a very soft close, like an evening wind that rustles
away across a woodland, and moves to the shining west. And looking at
the Lady Beckwith, he saw that she had passed, on the wings of song,
into old forgotten dreams, and sate smiling to herself, her eyes
brimming with tears. And then he rose, and saying that he would not be
tedious, put the lute aside, and they went out quietly together. And the
Lady Beckwith took his hand in both her own and said, "Sir Paul, you are
a great magician--I could not believe that you could have so charmed an
old and sad-hearted woman. You have the key of the door of the land of
dreams; and think not that I am ungrateful; that you, for whose songs
princes contend in vain, should deign to come and sing to a maiden that
is sick--how shall I repay it?" "Oh, I am richly repaid," said Paul,
"the guerdon of the singer is the incense of a glad heart--and you may
give me a little love if you can, for I am a lonely man." Then they
smiled at each other, the smile that makes a compact without words.

Then they went down together, and there was a simple meal set out; and
they ate together like old and secure friends, speaking little; but the
Lady Beckwith told him somewhat of her daughter Helen, how she had been
fair and strong till her fifteenth year; and that since that time, for
five weary years, she had suffered under a strange and wasting disease
that nothing could amend. "But she is patient and cheerful beneath it,
or I think my heart would break;--but I