he did not know it; she gave no outward sign,--sang to him
as sweetly and calmly as to the veriest stranger. What else had he
expected? Nothing; yet, with the unreasonableness of a lover, was
disappointed that nothing appeared.

Taking up a piece at random, without pausing to remember the words, he
said, spreading it before her, "May I tax you a little farther? I am
greedy, I know, but then how can I help it?"

It was the song of the Princess.

She hesitated a moment, and half closed the book. Had he been standing
where he could see her face, he would have been shocked by its pallor.
It was over directly: she recovered herself, and, opening the music with
a resolute air, began to sing:--

"Ask me no more: the moon may draw the sea;
The cloud may stoop from heaven and take the shape,
With fold to fold, of mountain and of cape;
But, O too fond, when have I answered thee?
Ask me no more.

"Ask me no more: what answer should I give?
I love not hollow cheek or faded eye;
Yet, O my friend, I will not have thee die!
Ask me no more, lest I should bid thee live:
Ask me no more."

She sang thus far with a clear, untrembling voice,--so clear and
untrembling as to be almost metallic,--the restraint she had put upon
herself making it unnatural. At the commencement she had estimated her
strength, and said, "It is sufficient!" but she had overtaxed it, as she
found in singing the last verse:--

"Ask me no more: thy fate and mine are sealed;
I strove against the stream and all in vain;
Let the great river take me to the main;
No more, dear love, for at a touch I yield:
Ask me no more."

All the longing, the passion, the prayer of which a human soul is
capable found expression in her voice. It broke through the affected
coldness and calm, as the ocean breaks through its puny barriers when,
after wind and tempest, all its mighty floods are out. Surrey had
changed his place, and stood fronting her. As the last word fell, she
looked at him, and the two faces saw in each but a reflection of the
same passion and pain: pallid, with eyes burning from an inward
fire,--swayed by the same emotion,--she bent forward as he, stretching
forth his arms, in a stifling voice cried, "Come!"

Bent, but for an instant; then, by a superhuman effort, turned from him,
and put out her hand with a gesture of dissent, though she could not
control her voice to speak a wor