ich precedes
the tenor's return. As that progressed the leader of the orchestra
shook like an epileptic. From his own musicians, from those on the
stage, from chorus and singers, he drew wave after wave of melody, a
full sea of transcendent accords that bathed Sylvia with harmony,
filtered through her, penetrating blissfully from fingertips to spine.

Delightedly she turned to Annandale. The visitors had gone. Orr was
entering. In his bulldog face was an expression vatic and amused.

"Yes," he resumed, seating himself at Sylvia's side, "she is billed as
Dellarandi, but I knew her as Marie Leroy."

Sylvia started, her lips half parted, her eyes dilated with surprise.

Annandale bent forward. "What is it?" he asked.

"Amneris, the contralto. Do you know who she is?"

"I know she is a devilish pretty woman. What about her?"

"She is the girl whose father was the twelfth juror in your case."

Annandale, who had been standing, literally dropped with astonishment
in a chair. But Sylvia was insatiable. She could not ask enough, she
could not get the answers quickly enough in reply. Orr, however, knew
very little, odds and ends merely that he gathered in the lobby,
summarily that the girl had married Tambourini, the music teacher, and
was regarded as destined to be one of the great queens of song.

So interested were all three that the third act was barely noticed. It
took the melting beauty of the final duo to distract them from the
debutante. But the witchery of that aria would distract a moribund. It
was with the bewildering loveliness of it in their ears that they
moved out from the box.

"Terra addio!" Orr repeated from it as they descended the stair.

"No, not addio," said Sylvia; "that poor girl may have said farewell
to many hopes, but there are other and better ones for her now. I feel
that she must have suffered terribly, and because of that suffering we
should acquit her of what she did."

"That is the verdict, is it?" said Orr.

"That is my verdict," Sylvia answered. Then touching Annandale's arm
she looked up at him and added, "It is yours, too, dear, is it not?"

THE END.

PUBLISHERS' NOTE

The publishers beg leave to state that The Perfume of Eros, in serial
form, was entitled The Yellow Fay.

Transcriber's Note:

Punctuation has been standardised. Changes have been made to the
original publication as follows:

Page 40
sometimes with arias from "Aida." _changed to_
s