So the evening preceding the wedding was to be spent quietly. The household was to assemble after the evening meal, and Ruth was to sing while the others drank and smoked. The evening was clear and calm, and the lingering twilight revealed a tiny crescent moon that sank below the horizon as the last glow of sunset faded from the sky. Later the wind rose, and dark, threatening storm-clouds obscured the light of the watching stars. Ruth tuned her harp, but there was little music in her heart. The dark, cloud-swept night seemed a fitting emblem of her future life. She sang. “Let me forget,” she thought to herself, “let me forget the present and the future; let me live in the past.” So she sang one after another the songs that she and David had loved and sung together. And as she sang, there crept over the listeners that strange, deep drowsiness that so often seemed to follow as a result of her sweet, pure music. [Illustration: SO SHE SANG ONE AFTER ANOTHER THE SONGS THAT SHE AND DAVID HAD LOVED] One by one the men and women yawned, their heads began to nod, the fires in the pipes smouldered and finally burned out, the glasses of wine on the tables were left untasted. Eyes closed, heads drooped at all sorts of strange and uncomfortable-looking angles; and soon sounds of heavy breathing, that rose to the volume of deep snores, filled the room. Still Ruth sang, for still not all were sleeping. The King would rouse himself every now and then as if striving to shake off the stupor that sought to gain possession of him. A strange, strange sound floated in through the open window--a sound as of the rushing of mighty wings. Ruth paused a moment to listen--then she heard the clear, high note of David’s whistle! As the last note rang its welcome message through her throbbing heart, she sang the answering notes which, she knew, would convey to David the message he longed to hear. A huge moth flew in through the open window, bumped about among the candles for a while, then alighted upon the bald spot on the King’s head and walked across the smooth surface, dragging its wings as it moved. Ruth almost laughed aloud--but no, it was too serious a moment to yield to such an impulse. The moth tickled the King. He awoke--opened his eyes--brushed his hand impatiently across his forehead--rose from his chair. Ruth’s heart sank. Was failure to meet them after all, when victory had seemed so near? “You have sung well to-night, little Queen,” the King said--“and to-morrow is our wedding day.” “I have failed, Sire,” she said, “in that which I most wished to do.” “What is that?” he asked. “I had thought to put you _all_ asleep to-night--all here in the Palace. I had almost succeeded, when a great moth flew through the open window and awakened your Majesty. Could I but have reached your side in time, I would have driven the thing away: then you too would have slept, and then I should have been happy indeed!”