is dream--Paris; forgotten all in
the fierce joy of having Edna with him forever. Again he experienced a
thrill that must be happiness: as if his being were dissolving into a
magnetic slumber. He searched her eyes. She bore it without blenching.

"Are you my same little Edna?" "Oh, my husband!" There was a knock at
the door; an office boy entered and gave Etharedge a letter which bore a
foreign stamp. She put out her hand greedily. "It will keep until after
dinner, Edna. We'll go to some cafe, drink a bottle of champagne and
celebrate. You must tell me your story--perhaps we may be able to go to
Paris, after all." "To Paris!" Edna shivered and importuned for the
letter until he showed it. "Why, it's mine!" she exclaimed. "It's the
letter I wrote you before we sailed." "You said nothing about it when
you came in?" He put it in his pocket and looked for his hat. She was
the color of clay. "It is my letter. Let me have it," she begged. "Why,
dear, what's the matter? I'll give it to you after I have read it. Why
this excitement? Besides, the address is not in your handwriting." He
trembled. "Emmeline wrote it for me; I was too busy--or sick--or--"
"Hang the letter, my dear girl. I hear the elevator. Let's run and catch
it. This is the happiest hour of my life. An 'intermezzo' you musicians
call it, don't you?" "Yes," she desperately whispered following him into
the hall, "an intermezzo of happiness--for you!"

Suddenly with a grin the man turned and handed her the letter: "Here!
I'd better not juggle with the future. You can tell me all about
it--to-morrow."

And now for the first time Edna hated him.

A SPINNER OF SILENCE

She was only a woman famish'd for loving.
Mad with devotion and such slight things.
And he was a very great musician
And used to finger his fiddle strings.

Her heart's sweet gamut is cracking and breaking
For a look, for a touch--for such slight things
But he's such a very great musician
Grimacing and fing'ring his fiddle strings.

--THEOPHILE MARZIALS.

I

In his study Belus sat before a piano, his slender troubled fingers
seeking to follow the quick drift of his mind. He played Liszt's
"Waldesrauschen," but murmured, "She is the first to doubt me." He
laughed, and shifted by an almost unconscious cut to the F minor
Nocturne of Chopin. With the upward curve of his thoughts the music grew
more joyous; then came bits of a Schubert impromptu