Of course she must tell him everything; but not to-night--to-night, she thought, he seemed particularly contented. He had gone now to get his hat. The clouds on the previous day had not emptied themselves. Now they once more drove through the heavens, though the moon, at present, shone victoriously. As Annie feared for her starched dress, Simon was going to take her home at once. When the door had closed upon them, Rachel went into the front room. André was sitting before one of the long windows, the casement of which lay back against the wall. In one of the upper panes of glass, swimming through a bank of wild clouds, the moon was reflected. It was as if the moon were in the room. The heat had increased; lightning played along the sky, and in the garden, the shrubbery, half shrouded in a silvery mist, was motionless. "Play something for me, André," Rachel said; and going to the window, she stood with her hands clasped behind her neck. How get through this evening--how get through her entire life? "I thought out a piece after you left Pemoquod. I will play that for you." And passing to the mantel, André took down his fiddle. "I call it your piece," he added softly. But Rachel, her eyes on the gleaming garden, did not hear him. Presently, a mournful and plaintive air, like the voice of a child giving way to grief, began to float through the room. It was instinctive playing, devoid of skill in the technical sense; none the less the sound of the strings was wistful, heart-rending. And suddenly the song gained in force and rang out powerfully; the crude, passionate, beseeching melody flowed from under the nervous, swift-moving bow, and such tenderness and devotion mingled with its flowing, such piercingly-sweet supplication, that Rachel, laying her face on her arm, supported herself against the casement. And André, his dark head bent, his cheek pressed to the violin, conscious that she was there before him in her rich dress, played like one in an ecstasy. His body swayed, tears stood on his pale cheeks, but his eyes were closed. At last, unable to endure the constantly recurring love _motif_, which was sweeter than the moon, more fathomless than the white moon drowned in space, Rachel fled through the long window. With a fierce movement she lifted her arms above her head; then, as if broken, rested her face against a tree. Rising from the ground beneath her feet, floating between the branches of the mist-hung trees, thrilling through all the spaces of the still and waiting garden, ran the fire of that exquisite melody, sounded those strains of pure and youthful love. Presently a flowering shrub moved slightly. Some branches that overhung a path stirred; then everything was motionless. She raised her head, her whole frame quivering like a tightly drawn bow. Out of the shadows, running rather than walking, Emil was advancing. With one movement she sprang to him and, uttering a low cry, he caught her.