When she asked for that last one, Mary cringed inwardly, as if she had been hurt herself, so sure was she that it must bring up painful memories to Phil. She fully expected to see him lay it aside with some excuse for not singing it. She remembered as vividly as if it were only last night how she had sat on the floor of the library at The Locusts, listening to the notes of his guitar as he sang to Lloyd outside on the porch: "Till the stars are old And the sun grows cold And the leaves of the Judgment Book unfold." For the life of her, she couldn't see how Lloyd ever listened to any other wooing after that. Had any one sung that to _her_ in that voice it would have won her so completely that she would have risen like the Sleeping Beauty at the call of the prince. "Beyond the night--across the day-- Through all the world she followed him." To her surprise, Phil took up the sheet of music as nonchalantly as if he had never seen it before. But when he began to sing it seemed to her anxious ear that he sang it more feelingly than anything she had ever heard. It was plain enough to her now that he had not ceased to care. It wrung her heart to hear him sing it so, pouring out his soul in a flood of noble devotion which he knew could never be requited, but which would live on till the sun lost its heat and the stars their light. "I love that song," said Roberta, laying it aside to pick up another. "But I'd like to meet that fiery old duck of a Bedouin when the leaves of the Judgment Book _do_ unfold, and find out how long his devotion kept up to high-water mark." Then she trilled airily, "Men are gay deceivers ever." Under the circumstances the remark seemed flippant, almost sacrilegious, to Mary. She gave Roberta a disapproving glance behind her back, thinking, "Little _you_ know about it. If you could see as I do now, how Phil is hiding his real feelings, you'd realize that there's _one_ man, at least, capable of the deathless devotion you scoff at." The evening was over all too soon. Phil was to take Roberta home on his way back to the hotel, and when he rose to go said, "I'll not make my farewells now. My train doesn't leave till nearly noon to-morrow, so I'll call some time during the morning to pay my respects to the Major and see you all again." "You'll have to say good-by to Mary now," said Gay. "She insists on taking that horrid freight car back to Bauer, at seven in the morning." "I must," said Mary. "You know they need me, now that the nurse is gone, and I've already been away two days." Roberta went out into the hall for her hat, and Gay followed as far as the door, talking as she went.