There was a silence between them for a few minutes, only broken by the song of the hidden bird and the ripple of notes from the piano, and then Eustace, with a deep sigh, shook off his sombre thoughts and spoke cheerfully. "I must sing you something, Lady Errington," he said lightly, "all this conversation will make you melancholy." "I like to feel melancholy. It's suitable to the hour." "Then I must make my song the same," he observed gaily, and thereupon played a soft dreamy prelude, at the end of which his sweet, sympathetic voice arose tenderly on the still air: I. "I love a star that shines above When day is blending with the night, Alas, what pain this foolish love, Such worship brings but cold delight. I cannot scale the twilight sky, My love to tell in accents sweet; It comes not down altho' I sigh, And So my star I ne'er can meet. II. "Oh foolish heart! oh cruel star! Your love I dare not hope to gain; Yet still you shine each night afar, To mock my anguish and my pain And yet thou art so sweet, so pure, I may not--dare not thee forsake; For tho' this pain for aye endure I'll love thee--but my heart will break." "The story of an impossible love," said Lady Errington when he ended. "Yes! It is called 'My Star in Heaven.'" "As if any man loved so hopelessly and purely--absurd!" "There are more varieties of the human race than you know of, Alizon." "No doubt. But I'm not particularly impressed with those I have met with." "You are talking of me." "I am talking of my husband." Eustace left the piano and stepped outside into the beautiful still night. The moon was looking over the fantastic gables of the hall, and filled the garden with trembling shadows. It was exquisitely beautiful, but human beings bring the prose of life into all the poetry of Nature. Eustace did so now. "May I smoke a cigarette, Alizon?" "Certainly!" He lighted a cigarette and leaned against the wall of the house, watching the ghostly curls of smoke melting in the moonshine. Both were silent for a few minutes, occupied with their own thoughts, and then Eustace spoke. "Why don't you divorce your husband?" Lady Errington started violently, for, strange to say, she was thinking of the same thing. She felt inclined to resent Gartney's plain speaking, but the light from the lamp was striking full on his grave face, and, seeing how much in earnest he was, she changed her mind. "I shall never do that," she replied quietly, with a slight shiver. It might have been the night air or the idea of divorce, but she shivered as she spoke. "Why not?" "Can you ask? Think of the disgrace it would be to the child." It was all over. Eustace had an intuitive feeling that the last word had been said on the subject. She would never divorce her husband, she would never listen to his offers of affection, for the child was at once her safeguard and her idol.