palatable? Surely the sooner it's over--"

"It never will be over," she broke in passionately. "It is for all my
life! Ah, what am I saying? Mr. Wingarde"--she turned towards him, her
face quivering painfully--"be patient with me! I have given my promise."

The smile on his face deepened into something that closely resembled a
sneer.

"How long do you want me to wait?" he said. "Fifty years?"

She drew back sharply. But almost instantly he went on speaking.

"I will yield a point," he said, "if it means so much to you. But, you
know, the wedding-day will dawn eventually, however remote we make it.
Will you say next month?"

The girl's eyes wore a hunted look, but she kept them raised with
desperate resolution. She did not answer him, however. After a moment he
repeated his question. His face had become stern. The lines about his
mouth were grimly resolute.

"Will you say next month, Nina?" he said. "It shall be the last day of
it if you wish. But--next month."

His tone was inexorable. He meant to win this point, and she knew it.

Her breath came quickly, unevenly; but in face of his mastery she made a
great effort to control her agitation.

"Very well," she said, and she spoke more steadily than she had spoken
at all during the interview. "I will marry you next month."

"Will you fix the day?" he asked.

She uttered a sudden, breathless laugh--the reckless laugh of the loser.

"Surely that cannot matter!" she said. "The first day or the last--as
you say, what difference does it make?"

"You leave the choice tome?" he asked, without the smallest change of
countenance.

"Certainly!" she said coldly.

"Then I choose the first," he rejoined.

And at the words she gave a great start as if already she repented the
moment of recklessness.

The notes of a piano struck suddenly through the almost tragic silence
that covered up the protest she had not dared to utter. A few quiet
chords; and then a woman's voice began to sing. Slowly, with deep,
hidden pathos, the words floated out into the night; and, involuntarily
almost, the man and the girl stood still to listen:

Shadows and mist and night,
Darkness around the way,
Here a cloud and there a star,
Afterwards, Day!

Sorrow and grief and tears,
Eyes vainly raised above,
Here a thorn and there a rose;
Afterwards, Love!

The voice was glorious, the rendering sublime. The spell of the singer
was felt in the utter