m, but would break it to her later on.

"This almost seems like getting acquainted with you and falling in love
with you over again," laughed Gerelda, as she talked to him in the same
gay, witty manner that had once so enthralled him in the old days. "I
wonder, Hubert," she said at length, "that you have not asked me to sing
or play for you. You used to be so delighted to hear me sing. While
lying on my sick-bed I heard my old nurse sing a song that you desired
me to learn. I have learned it now for you, Hubert. Listen to it, dear."

As Gerelda spoke she picked up a mandolin, and after striking a few
softly vibrating notes, commenced to sing in a low strain the tender
words of his favorite song, which she knew would be sure to find an echo
in his heart, if anything in this world would.

Ah! what a wondrous voice she had, so full of pathetic music and the
tenderness of wonderful love!

He listened, and something very like the old love stirred his heart.

The song had moved him, as she knew it would--ay, as nothing else in
this world could ever have done.

He bowed his head, and Gerelda, looking at him keenly from under her
long lashes, saw that his strong hand was shaking like an oak leaf in
the wind.

He leaned over and brushed back the curls caressingly from her forehead,
as a brother might have done.

"You are very good to have learned that for my sake; Gerelda," he
murmured. "I thank you for it."

"We must learn to sing it together," she declared.

"My voice is not what it used to be," he said, apologetically.

He lingered until the clock on the mantel struck ten; then he rose and
took his departure.

To Gerelda's great chagrin, he made no offer to kiss her good-night at
parting.

It was plainly evident that he wished her to understand that they were
on a different footing from what they were on that memorable night when
they were parted so strangely from each other.

When his footsteps had died away, Gerelda flung herself face downward on
the divan, sobbing as if her heart would break; and in this position, a
few minutes later, her mother surprised her.

"Why, Gerelda!" she cried. "I am shocked! What can this mean? It can not
be that you and your lover have had a quarrel the very hour in which you
have been restored to each other! Surely, there is no lingering doubt in
his heart now, that you eloped!"

Gerelda eagerly seized upon this idea.

"There seems to be, mother," she sobbed.

Mrs. North