ith gleams of
passion. The music itself was fitful, now full of joy, now tender, and
now sad:

"Look off, dear love, across the sallow sands,
And mark yon meeting of the sun and sea,
How long they kiss in sight of all the lands,
Ah! longer, longer we."

"She has a genius for feeling, hasn't she?" Leroy whispered to me.

"A genius for feeling!" I repeated, angrily. "Man, she has a heart and a
soul and a brain, if that is what you mean! I shouldn't think you would
be able to look at her from the standpoint of a critic."

Leroy shrugged his shoulders and went off. For a moment I almost hated
him for not feeling more resentful. I felt as if he owed it to his wife
to take offence at my foolish speech.

It was evident that the "mountain woman" had become the fashion. I
read reports in the papers about her unique receptions. I saw her name
printed conspicuously among the list of those who attended all sorts
of dinners and musicales and evenings among the set that affected
intellectual pursuits. She joined a number of women's clubs of an
exclusive kind.

"She is doing whatever her husband tells her to," said Jessica. "Why,
the other day I heard her ruining her voice on 'Siegfried'!"

But from day to day I noticed a difference in her. She developed a
terrible activity. She took personal charge of the affairs of her house;
she united with Leroy in keeping the house filled with guests; she got
on the board of a hospital for little children, and spent a part of
every day among the cots where the sufferers lay. Now and then when we
spent a quiet evening alone with her and Leroy, she sewed continually on
little white night-gowns for these poor babies. She used her carriage to
take the most extraordinary persons riding.

"In the cause of health," Leroy used to say, "I ought to have the
carriage fumigated after every ride Judith takes, for she is always
accompanied by some one who looks as if he or she should go into
quarantine."

One night, when he was chaffing her in this way, she flung her sewing
suddenly from her and sprang to her feet, as if she were going to give
way to a burst of girlish temper. Instead of that, a stream of tears
poured from her eyes, and she held out her trembling hands toward
Jessica.

"He does not know," she sobbed. "He cannot understand."

One memorable day Leroy hastened over to us while we were still at
breakfast to say that Judith was ill,--strangely ill. All night