"Few women would have refused you, Lockhart. There was the beautiful Clarendon year before last, and now the charming Montgomery ready to fling herself at your head." "Spare my modesty, Lord Gordon. You are calling in the aid of your imagination now. Cannot we have some music to beguile the moments of our last evening at Sunny Bank?" They pass away to another portion of the room. Lady Vera sits silent, brooding over the words she has heard. "How coolly they discussed their rejection," she thinks. "Lord Gordon wondered if I had a heart. Captain Lockhart called me a beautiful iceberg. Perhaps he does not care much. How carelessly he said that he was a soldier and expected wounds upon the field of battle. Perhaps he does not mind it, now that it is over. I remember that one of the poets has written: "Man's love is of man's life a thing apart, 'Tis woman's whole existence." The moon comes out and shines upon her, sitting sad and lonely, with her white hands folded across her black dress. Two quiet tears tremble upon her lashes, and fall upon her cheeks. "If I were a fatalist," she thinks, "I should believe that my life is destined to lie always in the shadow. I have never known an hour of perfect happiness." No one seems to miss her. In the drawing-room they are singing. Miss Montgomery's pretty soprano blends softly with the soldier's superb tenor. The pretty, sentimental song dies away into silence presently. There is some careless talk and laughter. Again the piano keys thrill under the firm touches of a man, and this time Captain Lockhart sings alone, sings with such passion and fervor as Lady Vera has never heard before, sings with his whole heart trembling on his lips, and she feels within her heart that it is his farewell to her: "I love thee, I love thee, Far better than wine; But the curse is above, Thou'lt never be mine. "As the blade wears the scabbard, The billow the shore, So sorrow doth fret me Forevermore. "Fair beauty, I leave thee To conquer my heart; I'll see thee, I'll bless thee, And then depart. "Let me take, ere I vanish, One look of thine eyes-- One smile for remembrance, For life soon flies. "And now for the fortune That hangeth above, And to bury in battle My dreams of love." "Does he know that I am here?" she asks herself. "Perhaps he meant me to hear what he said just now. A beautiful iceberg, that is what he thinks me." Someone misses Lady Vera, perhaps the significance of the soldier's song recalls her to mind; they go out to seek her, the giddy girls, who cannot guess how she has stolen out to bear her pain alone. "Here she is, hiding from us," they cry. "Come, Lady Vera, it is your turn now to sing." "I--cannot," she murmurs, faintly.