amenable. Is that your mood to-night?" He smiled
brightly.

Her eyes flashed with a sweet malice.

"I am not at all sure. It depends on how your command to sing is
justified."

"You cannot help but sing well."

"Why?"

"Because I will help you--make you."

This startled her ever so little. Was there some fibre of cruelty in
him, some evil in this influence he had over her? She shrank, and yet
again she said that she would rather have his cruelty than another man's
tenderness, so long as she knew that she had his--She paused, and did
not say the word. She met his eyes steadily--their concentration dazed
her--then she said almost coldly, her voice sounding far away:

"How, make me?"

"How fine, how proud!" he said to himself, then added:

"I meant 'make' in the helpful sense. I know the song: I've heard it
sung, I've sung it; I've taught you; my mind will act on yours, and you
will sing it well."

"Won't you sing it yourself? Do, please."

"No; to-night I wish to hear you."

"Why?"

"I will tell you later. Can you play the accompaniment? If not, I--"

"Oh, will you? I could sing it then, I think. You played it so
beautifully the other day--with all those strange chords."

He smiled.

"It is one of the few things that I can play. I always had a taste
for music; and up in one of the forts there was an old melodeon, so I
hammered away for years. I had to learn difficult things at the start,
or none at all, or else those I improvised; and that's how I can play
one or two of Beethoven's symphonies pretty well, and this song, and a
few others, and go a cropper with a waltz. Will you come?"

They moved to the piano. No one at first noticed them. When he sat down,
he said:

"You remember the words?"

"Yes, I learned them by heart."

"Good!"

He gently struck the chords. His gentleness had, however, a firmness,
a deep persuasiveness, which drew every face like a call. A few chords
waving, as it were, over the piano, and then he whispered:

"Now."

"Please go on for a minute longer," she begged.

"My throat feels dry all at once."

"Face away from the rest, towards me," he said gently.

She did so. His voice took a note softly, and held it. Presently her
voice as softly joined it, his stopped, and hers went on:

"In the lodge of the Mother of Men,
In the land of Desire,
Are the embers of fire,
Are the ashes of those who return,
Who return to