Across the garden, from the open windows of the central building, came the sound of a harp. It came faintly, a gentle, plaintive melody, all in harmony with the murmur of the fountain, the fading glories in the west--and an aching heart. The voice of the harp may have had its effect on Ruth. As she looked up at the face of Cyrus, with its misery, she began to feel the old-time sympathy of their childhood; the long forgotten sense of responsibility for his welfare when she was mother and sister to him, with the woman's love he had missed as a boy; also his chosen pal;--his adored and trusted playmate. She felt again the yearning to keep him out of trouble. His distress brought an almost equal suffering to herself. But when he turned his eyes again to her face she was--apparently--still studying the cloisters. "Is this really the end?" He spoke in a lower, unsteady voice. "Do you really mean that our boy and girl days, our old affection, all those memories--and you don't know how much they have meant to me--always, always--through everything--you don't really mean--all that is--is just--nothing? That I am no more to you than anybody else?" The heart in Ruth's little body beat so loud--it seemed to her--that a man could hear it. She tried hard to blink away the moisture in her eyes as they rested on various objects, but not on the face of Cyrus. "You will get over it, Drowsy. I feel it, in another way, as much as you do. Please don't talk about it. And you really must go. A man's presence here--and alone with me--would be very hard to explain. Please go--for my sake!" Cyrus closed his eyes and drew a hand, slowly, across his forehead. Then, instead of the protest she expected, he straightened up in a sudden agitation, laid his hand on her arm and pointed toward the convent buildings. The voice of a woman, singing, came floating across the silent garden. "What is that?" he whispered. Also in a lower tone Ruth answered: "That is Sister Francesca, singing. She has a heavenly voice." "What is she singing?" "An old Hungarian song. A mother's prayer for her child. She often sings it. And nothing could be more beautiful." "Sister Francesca!" he exclaimed, but in a solemn whisper. He remembered his father's dying words. "A famous singer," Ruth explained. "All the world has heard of her. She was never a mother but she sings this song with all the feeling and the----" He did not hear the end of the sentence. He had started in the direction of the song, across the garden. "Stop! Stop! Cyrus, stop. You don't know what you are doing!"