s," said Flora Schuyler, "we know that. We heard it with the Kaiser in
Berlin. Only one man could have written it; but his own countrymen could
not play it better than you do. A little overwhelming. How did you get
down to the spirit of it, Hetty?"

Lights were brought in just then, and they showed that the girl's face was
a trifle paler than usual, as closing the piano, she turned, with a little
laugh, upon the music-stool.

"Oh!" she said, "I don't quite know, and until to-night it always cheated
me. I got it at the depot--no, I didn't. It was there I felt the marching,
and Larry brought the prairie back to me; but I couldn't have seen what
was in the last music, because it hasn't happened yet."

"It will come?" said Flora.

"Yes," said Hetty, "wherever those weary men are going to."

"And to every one of us," said Cheyne, with a curious graveness they
afterwards remembered. "That is, the stress and strain--it is the triumph
at the end of it only the few attain."

Once more there was silence, and it was a relief when the unemotional Mrs.
Schuyler rose.

"Now," she said, and her voice, at least, had in it the twang of the
country, "you young folks have been solemn quite long enough. Can't you
talk something kind of lively?"

They did what they could, and--for Cheyne could on occasion display a
polished wit--light laughter filled the room, until Caroline Schuyler,
perhaps not without a motive, suggested a stroll on the lawn. If there was
dew upon the grass none of them heeded it, and it was but seldom anyone
enjoyed the privilege of pacing that sod when Mr. Schuyler was at home.
Every foot had cost him many dollars, and it remained but an imperfect
imitation of an English lawn. There was on the one side a fringe of
maples, and it was perhaps by Mrs. Schuyler's contrivance that eventually
Hetty found herself alone with Cheyne in their deeper shadow. It was not,
however, a surprise to her, for she had seen the man's desire and tacitly
fallen in with it. Miss Torrance had discovered that one seldom gains
anything by endeavouring to avoid the inevitable.

"Hetty," he said quietly, "I think you know why I have come to-night?"

The girl stood very still and silent for a space of seconds, and
afterwards wondered whether she made the decision then, or what she had
seen and heard since she entered the depot had formed it for her.

"Yes," she said slowly. "I am so sorry!"

Cheyne laid his hand upon her arm, and his v