His noisy, excited manner was so unlike his usual easy-going and pleasant disposition that Lord Carthew, watching him, could not but conclude that he was feverish, especially as Hilary seemed desperately thirsty. After handing him some ice, which by the doctor’s orders had been placed by the bedside, Lord Carthew took a seat near, and tried to calm him, while Margaret discreetly left the room. “Look here, Hilary,” he said, “I will confess the truth. I have fallen in love at last, and Kyro’s prediction is fulfilled. That is why I so particularly wish to remain Mr. Pritchard for a few hours longer.” Hilary became suddenly quiet. “It’s that crazy girl who took the jump, and whose obstinacy and foolhardiness brought me this nice little charge of gunshot in my shoulder, I suppose?” he said. “It is Miss Cranstoun certainly, but--” “Oh! spare me a lover’s rhapsodies, old chap. Under the circumstances, you can scarcely expect me to regard her as you do.” “She is more sorry about the accident than I can possibly tell you, and blames herself entirely----” “Oh, I dare say. Well, go back and make love to her by all means. What is that?” The sweet notes of a pure soprano voice were wafted up to them from the drawing-room immediately below. Some one was singing the Lorelei to the accompaniment of harp. Lord Carthew crossed to the door and held it open. Something wild and plaintive in the quality of Stella’s voice, for he knew well the singer could be none other than she, touched him deeply, and seemed to draw him like a magnet to her side. Holding the door open, he glanced at the bed whereon Hilary lay with closed eyes and frowning brows, as though asleep, an impression which he carried out further by remaining silent when Claud addressed him. Feeling his conscience freed from responsibility, Lord Carthew returned to the drawing-room. Lady Cranstoun and the doctor were deep in their game of chess, and in the half light he could see Stella seated at the harp, across the strings of which her delicate hands were straying, while the last note of the old German _volkslied_ lingered on her lips, a strangely poetic picture of beauty and harmony which Lord Carthew was destined to carry in his mind for all time. CHAPTER IV. ENEMIES. As Lord Carthew approached, the girl ceased playing. “Is he better?” she asked. “Will my singing disturb him?” “It will soothe him, I should say. Only a faint sound of it can be heard in his room. He seemed to fall asleep just as I left.” “Did you tell him,” she asked, with flushed cheeks and lowered lashes, while her fingers strayed over the strings without striking them, “how very, very sorry I am for my thoughtless folly?”