threw great profiles of the various busts upon the dim
bass-reliefs of twining scroll-work; and Dare, with his eyes fixed on
Ruth, began to play.

There is in some music a strange appeal beyond the reach of words. Those
mysterious sharps and flats, and major and minor chords, are an alphabet
that in some occult combinations forms another higher language than that
of speech, a language which, as we listen, thrills us to the heart.

It was an old piano, with an impediment in its speech, out of the yellow
notes of which Ruth could have made nothing; but in Dare's hands it
spoke for him as he never could have spoken for himself.

His eyes never left her. He feared to look away, lest he should find the
presence of that quiet, graceful figure by his fireside had been a
dream, and that he was alone again with the dim lamps, alone with Dante
and Cicero and Seneca.

The firelight dwelt ruddily upon her grave clear-cut face and level
brows, and upon the folds of her white gown. It touched the slender
hands clasped lightly together on her knee, and drew sudden sparks and
gleams out of the diamond pin at her throat.

His hands trembled on the keys, and as he looked his heart beat high and
higher, loud and louder, till it drowned the rhythm of the music. And as
he looked her calm eyes met his.

In another moment he was on his knees beside her, her hands caught in
his trembling clasp, and his head pressed down upon them.

"I know," he gasped, "it is no good. You have told me so once. You will
tell me so again. I am not good enough. I am not worthy. But I love you;
I love you!"

In moments of real feeling the old words hold their own against all
modern new-comers. Dare repeated them over and over again in a paroxysm
of overwhelming emotion which shook him from head to foot.

Something in his boyish attitude and in his entire loss of self-control
touched Ruth strangely. She knew he was five or six years her senior,
but at the moment she felt as if she were much older than he, and a
sudden vague wish passed through her mind that he had been nearer her in
age; not quite so young.

"Well?" she said, gently; and he felt her cool, passive hands tremble a
little in his. Something in the tone of her voice made him raise his
head, and meet her eyes looking down at him, earnestly, and with a great
kindness in them.

A sudden eager light leaped into his face.

"Will you?" he whispered, breathlessly, his hands tightening their hold