"No," said Miss Torrance, who afterwards wondered whether it would have made a great difference if she had not chosen that nocturne. "It was the prairie when the stars are coming out over Cedar Range. Then it seems bigger and more solemn than the sea. I can see it now, wide and grey and shadowy, and so still that you feel afraid to hear yourself breathing, with the last smoky flush burning on its northern rim. Now, you may laugh at me, for you couldn't understand. When you have been born there, you always love the prairie." Then with a little deprecatory gesture she touched the keys again. "It will be different this time." Cheyne glanced up sharply during the prelude, and then, feeling that the girl's eyes were upon him, nodded as out of the swelling harmonies there crept the theme. It suggested the tramp of marching feet, but there was a curious unevenness in its rhythm, and the crescendo one of the listeners looked for never came. The room was almost dark now, but none of those who sat there seemed to notice it as they listened to the listless tramp of marching feet. Then the harmonies drowned it again, and Hetty looked at Cheyne. "Now," she said, "can you tell me what that means?" Cheyne's voice seemed a trifle strained, as though the music had troubled him. "I know the march, but the composer never wrote what you have played to-night," he said. "It was--may mine be defended from it!--the shuffle of beaten men. How could you have felt what you put into the music?" "No," said Hetty. "Your men could never march like that. It was footsteps going west, and I could not have originated their dragging beat. I have heard it." There was a little silence, until Cheyne said softly, "One more." "Then," said Hetty, "you will recognize this." The chords rang under her fingers until they swelled into confused and conflicting harmonies that clashed and jarred upon the theme. Their burden was strife and struggle and the anguish of strain, until at last, in the high clear note of victory, the theme rose supreme. "Yes," said Flora Schuyler, "we know that. We heard it with the Kaiser in Berlin. Only one man could have written it; but his own countrymen could not play it better than you do. A little overwhelming. How did you get down to the spirit of it, Hetty?" Lights were brought in just then, and they showed that the girl's face was a trifle paler than usual, as closing the piano, she turned, with a little laugh, upon the music-stool. "Oh!" she said, "I don't quite know, and until to-night it always cheated me. I got it at the depot--no, I didn't. It was there I felt the marching, and Larry brought the prairie back to me; but I couldn't have seen what was in the last music, because it hasn't happened yet." "It will come?" said Flora. "Yes," said Hetty, "wherever those weary men are going to."