I have sometimes wondered whether a great poet ever takes up his own volume, and recalls the time in which each song was born. The song lives on, fresh and sweet as when it first started into life; but only the writer can see the withered hopes—the poor faded dreams and worn-out associations that cling to every line. So many dead things are hanging round those living verses that I fancy the author can hardly sing them over to himself without tears. And as I sat quietly listening for the first words of my love-song, written in the spring, and touched with springtide hope and confidence, my heart was aching for the happier past. But it was not the prelude to my song that my husband began to play. As he swept the strings, there came again that sweet, strange melody which always soothed us, even while it baffled all attempts to catch its meaning. Over and over he played that soft air, till the last trace of vexation faded out of his face; and his eyes, with a musing look in them, sought mine inquiringly. Again the music hushed all my troubled thoughts, as a nurse stills the fretful wailing of a child; again it seemed to murmur faintly of a coming time of peace and joy and rest. "Shall I ever know where I learnt that air?" asked Ronald at last, letting the guitar rest on his knee. "Louie, I will tell you a curious thing. One night I was dining with some friends of Greystock's; they had a guitar in the room, and I took it up and tried to play our mysterious melody. But it would not come; and had to give up the attempt to recall it. What do you think of that, little woman?" "I don't know what to think, Ronald," I replied; "but I do know that there is something in the air that gives me new courage and comforts me as nothing else does. Perhaps it is a message from some unknown spirit friend. Who can tell?" And he echoed thoughtfully, "Who can tell?" [Illustration] [Illustration] CHAPTER XIII. ANGUISH. WE went down to Richmond early in the afternoon—a true July afternoon—sultry and still. The air was full of a dreamy haze that softened the outlines of objects without hiding them. Even the brilliant colours of the flower-beds seemed to be subdued as we passed the well-kept gardens, where women in light summer dresses were sitting under awnings, and men were taking their ease in cane chairs. We had decided not to go upon the overcrowded river, and William Greystock led his little party straight to the lower park. It was a very small party, and yet, at this hour, I have but a very faint recollection of those who wandered with me under the old trees that day. I saw but two persons, my husband and Ida Lorimer. The others seemed to move about them like phantoms; and I think I must have looked and spoken as if I were in a dream.