Laurier’s heart was touched by her faithful love, and he reproached himself for the way he had neglected her letters, often not answering them for weeks, almost forgetting her existence in the indifference that had stolen over him and made him wish in secret that something would happen to break the irksome bond that fettered his changed heart. Many a man would not have hesitated to own that he had ceased to love, and claimed his freedom from her hands, but not so Laurier, who prided himself on his honor, and pitied Cora too sincerely to wound her loving heart. Doubt’s cruel whisper shall not break the spell, Oh, thou whom to deceive is to befriend; All shall be well with thee until the end, Until the end believing all is well! He was going home to marry her and make her as happy as he could. For himself it did not matter greatly. Even if his heart was cold to her, she had at least no living rival, and that must suffice. That evening when he came on deck--the young men had persuaded him--begging him to come and listen to the sweet voice singing in the moonlight, the voice of a girl as lovely as an angel, but with such a selfish, cruel papa that he would not permit any of them to approach within arm’s length. “I wish you would storm the citadel of her heart, Laurier, and avenge us!” laughed one. “You forget that I am going home to be married!” he replied gravely. “Oh, a little flirtation beforehand need not matter.” “I beg your pardon. A young girl’s love is too sacred to be trifled with. I will go on deck and listen because I adore singing, but I shall not try to make the young lady’s acquaintance.” So in the silvery moonlight of that balmy September evening he went on deck with his friends, and saw, sitting apart, the man lightly touching the strings of a mandolin, while by his side stood his daughter, a slender, classically gowned girl in a simple robe of warm, white cashmere falling in straight folds, her pure, lovely face crowned with golden hair, lifted to the sky while she sang in notes of liquid melody: “Last night the nightingale woke me, Last night when all was still, It sang in the golden moonlight From out the wooded hill. I opened my window so gently, I looked on the dreaming dew, And, oh, the bird, my darling, Was singing of you, of you! “I think of you in the daytime, I dream of you by night, I wake, and would you were here, love, And tears are blinding my sight. I hear a low breath in the lime tree, The wind is floating through, And, oh, the night, my darling, Is sighing, sighing, for you! “Oh, think not I can forget you, I could not though I would, I see you in all around me The stream, the night, the wood. The flowers that slumber so gently, The stars above the blue, Oh, heaven itself, my darling, Is praying, praying, for you!”