The old nobleman stood by the fireplace and gazed at the undulating lawns that showed from the windows in the deepening shroud of night. "It was good of you to tell us that," he said; "it will make my wife's sorrow more easy to bear." He walked slowly to a window and passed his hand wearily over his brow. "Sometime," he went on gently, "I must show you his room. We are keeping it just as it was." Craighouse said nothing, but in his heart was a great understanding. The first silver rays of the moon were dancing on the grass, when the earl spoke again. "It is hard for my wife," he said; "but she will be proud to know that she gave everything she had for--for England." The American's heart sank. "Everything?" he stammered. "You mean----" The older man's head was bowed with the simple dignity of his grief. "I have not told her yet," he said, "but I received an Admiralty message to-day that my second son's destroyer has gone down. He is reported 'missing.'" XII It was nearly an hour later, when Craighouse was wandering about the lawns in the glistening moonlight, that he heard the rustle of skirts behind him. It was Lady Dorothy, and her eyes were shining like twin-stars. "I thought you would be here," she said. "It is a night that draws one to it." "It is a night for memories," he said quietly. "What bitter-sweet things they have become since we had war!" "Yes;" and she sighed. For a little time they spoke of the sorrows and the tragedies of their world; they talked of Oaklands, which would pass from her family because there was no heir; they played on the minor chords of life, and in their voices the melancholy elegy for beautiful things that had died found expression in their hushed and murmuring tones. But they were young, and in the heart of youth there is always Spring; and the witchery of a moonlight night was calling to it. The minor strains trembled into silence, and the melody of hearts that are young took its place. She had deep-blue eyes that were never meant for tears, and he had a nature that responded to the beauty of life as an Æolian harp to the moods of the wind. As men and maids have done for generations, they talked of themselves. (A dangerous topic when the moon is making fairy-rings upon the grass.) They traced their friendship from his first visit, and lightly touched on the weary hours when she watched by his bedside in France. They laughed, they sighed, and once their fingers touched by accident, and he felt a thrill as the hot blood rushed to his cheeks. He experienced a sudden resentment against her wild-rose coloring, the marble fullness of her throat, and the luxury of silky, brown hair which held a vagrant moonbeam in a lingering caress. It was a protest of the brain to the senses against the allurement of beauty. "We must never meet again," he said severely.