Through the window, the group of deodars was visible, and there, bathed in the mild yellow sunshine was the mound, and the faded wreath swinging in the breeze. For many minutes Mrs. Gerome gazed at the quiet spot where her nurse rested, and with her eyes still on the grave, her fingers struck into Chopin's Funeral March. After a while, Dr. Grey noticed a slight quiver cross her pale lips, and when the mournful music reached its saddest chords, a mist veiled the steely eyes, and very soon tears rolled slowly down her cheeks. The march ended, she did not pause, but began Mozart's Requiem, and all the while that slow rain of tears dripped down on her white fingers, and splashed upon the ivory keys. Dr. Grey was so rejoiced at the breaking up of the ice that had long frozen the fountain of her tears, that he made no attempt to interrupt her, until he saw that she tottered in her chair. Taking her hands from the piano, he said gently,-- "You are quite exhausted, and I can not permit this to continue. Come back to your room." "No; let me stay here. Put me on the sofa in the oriel, and leave the blinds open." He lifted her from the chair and led her to the sofa, where she sank heavily down upon the cushions. Without comment or resistance, she drank a glass of strong cordial which he held to her lips, and lay with her eyes closed, while tears still trickled through the long jet lashes. She wore a robe of white merino, and a rich blue shawl of the same soft material which was folded across her shoulders, made the wan face look like some marble seraph's, hovering over an altar where violet light streams through stained glass. For some time Dr. Grey walked up and down the long room, glancing now and then at his patient, and when he saw that the tears had ceased, he brought from a basket in the hall an exquisitely beautiful and fragrant bouquet of the flowers which he knew she loved best,--heliotrope, violets, tube-rose, and Grand-Duke jessamine, fringed daintily with spicy geranium leaves, and scarlet fuchsias. Silently he placed it on her folded hands, and the expression of surprise and pleasure that suddenly lighted her countenance, amply repaid him. "Dr. Grey, it has been my wish to except services from no one,--to owe no human being thanks; but your unvarying kindness to my poor Elsie and to me, imposes a debt of gratitude that I can not easily liquidate. I fear you are destined to bankrupt me, for how can I hope to repay all your thoughtful, delicate care, and generous interest in a stranger? Tell me in what way I can adequately requite you." Dr. Grey drew a chair close to the sofa, and answered,-- "Take care lest your zeal prove the contrary, for you know a distinguished philosopher asserts that, 'Too great eagerness to requite an obligation is a species of ingratitude;' and such an accusation would be unflattering to you, and unpleasant to me."