Tisdale had not foreseen the personal drift to the conversation. And it had not occurred to him he was unobserved; the balcony light was directly over him, and he had waited, expecting they would come through to the porch, to speak to them. Now he saw that from where they had stopped in the brilliant interior, his figure must have blended into the background of hemlock boughs. If they had given him any thought, they had believed he had gone down with Elizabeth and the lieutenant. To have apologized, made himself known, after he grasped the significance of the situation, would only have resulted in embarrassment to them all. He allowed them time to reach the floor below. But the heat rose in his face. And suddenly, as his mind ran back over that interview in the bows of the _Aquila_, his question in regard to Foster seemed gross. Still, still, she had said she did "not care to marry again." That one fact radiated subconsciously through the puzzling thoughts that baffled him. Behind him a few splendid chords rolled through the hall to the vaulted roof, then pealed forth the overture from Martha. That had been Weatherbee's favorite opera. Sometimes on long Arctic nights, when they were recalling old times and old songs, he himself had taken Plunkett's part to David's Lionel. He could see that cabin now, the door set wide, while their voices stormed the white silence under the near Yukon stars. His eyes gathered their absent expression. It was as though he looked beyond the park, far and away into other vast solitudes; saw once more the cliffs of Nanatuk looming through fog and heard clearly, booming across the ice, the great, familiar baritone. The notes of the organ ceased. Tisdale stirred like a man roused from sleep. He turned and started through to the gallery. A woman's voice, without accompaniment, was singing Martha's immortal aria, _The Last Rose of Summer_. It was beautiful. The strains, sweet and rich, flooded the hall and pervaded the upper rooms. Looking down from the railing, he saw Elizabeth and the lieutenant at the entrance below. The men who had installed the organ, were listening too, at the end of the hall, while beyond the open door the crew of the _Aquila_ waited to carry the master aboard. As he reached the top of the stairs, Mrs. Feversham appeared, seated near the invalid in the center of the hall, and finally, as he came to the first landing, there was the diva herself, acknowledging the applause, sweeping backward with charming exaggeration from the front of the stage. "Bravo!" shouted Frederic. "Bravo! Encore!" She took the vacant seat at the organ, and the great notes of the _Good-night_ chorus rolled to the rafters. Responding to her nodding invitation, the voices of the audience joined her own. It was inspiring. Tisdale stopped on the landing and involuntarily he caught up his old part. "Tho' no prayer of mine can move thee Yet I wish thee sweet good night; Now good night, good night, good night!"