"What would you like me to play, auntie?" Cecil asked presently. "Oh, let me have one of your favourite reveries: your 'Gondola,' or your 'Femme du Marin,' or your 'Source,' or some of that dreamy nonsense you are so fond of. Play something of Mendelssohn's, if you like--those doleful 'Songs without Words'--funeral dirges without the funeral, _I_ should call them--which you were so fond of playing to Hector at Fortinbras." Watching the frail white figure relentlessly athwart the dusk, Mrs. MacClaverhouse perceived a faint shiver disturb its repose as she said this. But in the next moment Cecil struck a few chords and began to play. Her aunt rose from the chair in which she had seated herself, and came nearer the piano. Cecil's music to-night was of the softest and tenderest character. Her fingers glided over the keys in a dreamy _legato_ movement, and as the dowager watched and listened, two actual tears arose in those sharp worldly eyes, and blotted the picture of the slender white-robed figure, and graceful drooping head. While Cecil was lingering fondly over a _piano_ passage, the dowager startled her by a profound sigh. Any thing in the way of sentiment was so foreign to the habits of Mrs. MacClaverhouse's mind that Cecil looked up from her piano in unmitigated surprise. "Ah, by-the-bye," said the dowager, "talking of Hector Gordon, I had some news from India to-day." "Indeed, auntie!" The same faint shiver that had stirred the white-robed figure before stirred it again. There are some things that can never be forgotten. "Yes, I had a letter _viâ_ Marseilles. Of course, when people are wallowing in gold they have no occasion to think of sixpence more or less for postage. _My_ letters have to go by Southampton. Bad news, of course, Cecil; who ever receives good news nowadays? I shall have to go into mourning; poor people's relations are always dying. I am really almost inclined to think they do it on purpose to involve one in the expense of mourning." Cecil's heart gave a great leap, and then, seemed to stand still. The human heart has a faculty of transforming itself into a lump of ice at such moments. "What do you mean?" she cried, with a vehemence that startled the dowager; "is Hector Gordon dead?" She rose from before the piano, trembling from head to foot. Mrs. MacClaverhouse caught her niece in her arms. "My darling!" she exclaimed,--and perhaps it was the first time in her life that the strong-minded matron had ever employed so tender an epithet,--"do you think I should talk so coolly about going into mourning for my boy?--who has been more than a son to me, bless his generous heart. Don't tremble so, Cecil; it is Hector's wife, poor young thing, who is dead."