"I'm glad I told Mr.
Harrington what I did before seeing her. Otherwise he might have
suspected that her beauty had something to do with my offer, and
so be jealous lest I had designs upon his singing-bird, as he
called her. But alas, neither beauty, nor grace, nor purity can
now avail with me, miserable wretch that I am," and again that
piteous moan, as of a soul punished before its time, was heard in
the silent room.
But hark, what sound is that, which, stealing through the iron-
latticed windows, drowns the echo of that moan, and makes the
young man listen? It is Edith Hastings singing one of her wild
songs, and the full rich melody of her wonderful voice falls upon
his ear, Arthur St. Claire bows his head upon his hands and weeps,
for the music carries him back to the long ago when he had no
terrible secret haunting every hour, but was as light-hearted as
the maiden whom, as she gallops away on her swift-footed Arabian,
he looks after, with wistful eyes, watching her until the sweep of
her long riding-skirt and the waving of her graceful plumes
disappear beneath the shadow of the dim woods, where night is
beginning to fall.
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