“Oh!” said he, “I should have hard work to choose. Yet, perhaps, I like 'The Bride's Prelude' as well as any. But which do you?” “You'll laugh, if I tell you.” “Oh, no, I sha'n't. Tell me, please.” “Well, the one that somehow moves me most deeply--it is one that I have scarcely ever heard praised or quoted--may be you haven't even read it. It's a little mite of a lyric--this.” She took the book, and quietly, slowly, intently, musically, read aloud the song, “Even So.” “Those last lines,” she added, “sound like the wail of a soul--they are so hopeless, so passionate, so despairing. They _suggest_ so much more than they _say_--such a deep, dumb grief. Sometimes they haunt my mind for hours and hours together, and give me such a strange heartache. What could it have been, the thing that separated them? I suppose he must have done something base--something that killed her love, so that he lost her forever. Yet I can't understand why it should be so absolutely hopeless. If they really were all alone together, as he says, and she saw how dreadfully he had suffered, I don't understand how she could help forgiving him and loving him again. Do you?” And she repeated the verse: “Could we be so now?-- Not if all beneath heaven's pall Lay dead but I and thou, Could we be so now!” She repeated the verse, and at the end she drew a long, tremulous breath. If she had noticed Elias Bacharach's physiognomy, while she was speaking, she could not have failed to guess his secret. Pale cheeks, parted lips, and eyes riveted upon her face, told the whole story more eloquently than his tongue could have done. But her attention was all for Rossetti's poetry. “Well,” exclaimed old Redwood, “that may be very fine sentiment. I'm not denying it is. But the grammar is what stumps me. When 'but' is used as a preposition, in the sense of 'except,' it governs the accusative case. At least, that's how I was taught at school. The line ought to read: 'Lay dead but me and thee,' or 'me and you.' Ain't that so, Mr. Bacharach?” “Well, I suppose it's poet's license,” said Elias. Folding his newspaper, and getting upon his feet, the old man continued, “Well, I guess I may as well go out and get shaved, Chris. I'll leave you in the charge of Mr. Bacharach. Take care of her, Mr. B.” And he went away. Elias was alone with her. She sat far back in her chair, looking through half-closed lids into the fire. He sat forward, upon the ultimate edge of his chair, and looked at her. His breath was coming hard and fierce. The blood was bounding in his veins. For a while neither of them spoke. By and by Elias broke the silence. “Miss---- Miss Redwood,” he began; then stopped. “Yes?” she queried. He began again, “Miss Redwood--” Again he stopped. His throat felt compressed, his mouth hot and parched. He knew perfectly well what he wanted to say; but his heart trembled so, he could not say it.