where he used to sit while Edith
played.

Conjuring her gracious image out of the dreamy shadows, he found balm
for his sore heart in the white gown that fell softly around her, the
small white foot that now and then pressed the pedal, the long, graceful
line that swept from her shoulder to her finger-tips, the faint hollow
where her gown, with the softness of a caress, melted into the ivory
whiteness of her neck, the thick, creamy skin, in some way suggesting
white rose-leaves, the scarlet, wistful mouth, the deep brown eyes
reflecting golden lights, and the crown of wonderful hair that shimmered
and shone and gleamed like burnished gold.

The subtle sweetness of her filled the room. She had left behind her not
only a memory but the enduring impress of personality. The house was
full of Ediths. There was one at the table, another at the piano, one
leaning against the mantel with hands clasped behind her, another in a
high-backed rocker, leaning back against a dull green cushion, and one
upon the stairway, ascending with light steps that died away with the
closing of a door, or descending with a quick rustle of silken skirts
that presently merged into perfume, then into her.

[Sidenote: Release from Pain]

Every gown she had worn, every word she had said, every laugh that had
wakened slumbering echoes with its low, vibrant contralto, came
remorselessly back. Full tides of longing beat pitilessly upon his
senses, never, it seemed, to ebb again. And yet, at times, when his
whole soul so cried out for her that he stretched his arms, in yearning,
toward the myriad phantom Ediths that peopled the room, mystical
assurance would come from somewhere that she, too, was keeping the night
watch.

Through the tense and throbbing darkness, love sped from one to the
other as though upon ghostly wings. Neither sight nor sound nor touch
betrayed its coming, yet the call and the answer were always divinely
sure. As though they two stood dumbly on either side of some mysterious
portal, denied all things save longing, heart-beat answered unto
heart-beat in the stillness of the night.

The experience invariably brought comfort and a certain release from
pain. Denial seemed to be but another phase of fulfilment, since it
opened the way for this exquisite belonging of one to the other. Beyond
and above all lure of woman, wholly aside from the ecstasy of sight and
touch, she was his as inseparably as perfume belongs to the rose that
b