“And that is?” she asked softly, and with averted eyes. “I have made you my friend,” he said, bending toward her until the perfume of her luxuriant hair thrilled him with vague ecstasy, and the smile on her lips seemed almost a caress. Suddenly she looked up at him, and in her eyes lay a troubled and beseeching gleam. “And the price of my friendship--are you willing to pay it?” she asked gently. “Of course I am!” he exclaimed. “No sacrifice on my part is too great to make in such a cause. Bargains like this one are made in heaven, are they not?” She glanced at him with an expression in her eyes that told him he had wounded her. Without a word she arose and walked into the music-room, and he followed her with a repentant look in his face. Seating herself at the piano, she played softly some of the Lenten music she had heard at the afternoon service. The prayer of a heart-broken world breathed in the sobbing chords. Then the movement changed, and the harmony seemed to promise rest and peace to the weary sons of men. The spirit of the penitential season had been crystallized in sound, and touched the heart as though a voice had whispered from another world. The music died away, as if the infinite had taken to its breast the tired soul of one who cried aloud, then passed away in peace; and she turned and looked into the face of the youth at her side. “Is it not restful?” she asked gently. “How wonderful it is that music should so change our mood and aspirations.” “And you forgive me?” he asked penitently. She laughed almost gayly. “Is it not a habit I’ve fallen into? I am always granting you pardon, am I not? Do you remember, the very first time I met you you were obliged to ask forgiveness for what you said. How many times since then I’ve pardoned you I can hardly say. You have been very rebellious.” “How could I be otherwise?” he exclaimed, his eyes avoiding hers. “Does the prisoner feel less impatient because of his chains. It is so difficult, is it not, to be civilized?” “I hardly understand you, Mr. Stoughton,” she said, trying hard to speak very coldly. “Cursed be the social lies that warp us from the living truth,” he quoted. “How thoroughly Tennyson gives expression to the revolt of youth against the shackles that civilization, so called, has thrown around it! I think I know, to my cost, how he felt when he wrote certain lines in ‘Locksley Hall.’” Richard took a few steps up and down the room, and then threw himself into a chair and looked steadfastly at Mrs. Percy-Bartlett. Her face had lost its color, and there were dark shadows beneath her eyes, while a smile of sadness, perhaps of regret, hovered round her mouth. “I have something to say to you,” she remarked, after a moment’s silence, her voice low and firm. “You must sit where you are and listen to me attentively. Will you promise me to weigh my words carefully and--and--not misunderstand me?” He saw that she was essaying a difficult task, and he said gently,--