t seemed to her to don her pretty frock, her ornaments,
her flowers--to see herself a radiant vision of youth and loveliness in
her mirror--while all the time her heart was bleeding for her lover's
suffering, and he lay tossing upon a bed of sickness, calling vainly
upon her name! If she could have done as she liked, she would have
relinquished all her engagements and sought his bedside at once.
But--fortunately perhaps--she was bound, for many reasons, to sing at
Lady Beauclerc's party. Madame della Scala and others would be injured
in reputation, if not in pocket, should she fail to appear. And,
although she would not mind sacrificing her own interests, she could not
sacrifice those of her friends even for the sake of her love.

She was said never to have looked so brilliant or sung so magnificently
before. There was a new strange touch of pathos in her eyes and
voice--something that stirred the hearts of those who heard. The new
vibration in her voice was put down to genius by her audience, and not
by any means to emotion.

"That girl will equal Patti if she goes on like this," said one musical
amateur to another that evening.

"But she won't go on like this," his friend replied. "She'll marry, or
break down, or something; she won't last; she won't be tied down to a
professional life--that's my prophecy. She'll bolt!"

The amateur laughed him to scorn. But he had reason to alter his tone
when some years later his friend reminded him of his prediction, and
coupled it with the information that Cynthia West's last appearance as a
singer had been at Lady Beauclerc's party. She never sang in public
again.

But she had no idea, during the evening in question, that it was
absolutely her last appearance. Her mind had never been so much set on a
professional career as it was just then. She meant to go to America
with her father certainly, but to take engagements as a vocalist in the
States. That she was at all likely to cease work so suddenly and so soon
never once occurred to her.

She was glad when the evening was over--glad to get back to her own
quiet room, and to lay certain plans for the morrow. She would go to
Hubert in the morning--not to stay of course, but to see whether he was
well nursed and tended; and she would take with her the ornaments that
he had presented to her, and which she had meant to give back. She would
get Mrs. Jenkins to put them away for her in some safe drawer or box;
and, when he was bett