fore had he been privileged
to behold live men in them. The men seemed pale and puny for the most
part. He had never before seen ladies in low-necked dresses and one just
before him seemed shamelessly naked, and he gazed at her in
astonishment. He was glad Mary had more modesty.

The concert interested him but did not move him. The songs were
brilliant but without meaning. He waited with fierce impatience for Mary
to come on, and during this wait he did an inordinate amount of
thinking. A hundred new conceptions came into his besieged
brain--engaging but by no means confusing him. He perceived that Mary
was already as much a part of this high-colored life as she had been of
the life of Marmion, quite at ease, certain of herself, and the canon
between them widened swiftly. She was infinitely further away from him
than before. His cause now entirely hopeless, he had no right to ask any
such sacrifice of her--even if she were ready to make it.

As she stepped out upon the stage in the glare of the light, she seemed
as far from him as the roseate crown of snow on Sierra Blanca, and he
shivered with a sort of awe. Her singing moved him less than her
delicate beauty--but her voice and the pretty way she had of lifting her
chin thrilled him just as when he sat in the little church at Marmion.
The flowerlike texture of her skin and the exquisite grace of her hands
plunged him into gloom.

He did not join in the generous applause which followed--he wondered if
she would sing If I Were a Voice for him. He felt a numbness creeping
over his limbs and he drew his breath like one in pain. Mary looked pale
as a lily as she returned and stood waiting for the applause to die
away. Then out over the tense audience, straight toward him, soared her
voice quivering with emotion--she dared to sing the old song for him.

Suddenly all sense of material things passed from the wild heart of the
plainsman. He saw only the singer who stood in the center of a white
flame. A soft humming roar was in his ears like the falling of rain
drops on the leaves of maple trees. He remembered the pale little girl
in the prison--this was not Mary--but she had the voice and the spirit
of Mary----

Then the song stopped! The singer went away--the white light went with
her and the yellow glare of lamps came back. He heard the passionate
applause--he saw Mary reappear and bow, a sad smile on her face--a smile
which he alone could understand--her heart was full