In tones of tender anxiety, she said:  “I am afraid you are very tired, dear.  I am sorry I kept you out so long.”

“I am rather weary,” he replied, taking her hand, and holding it in his.  He was so silent as they walked toward the house, that she feared he was seriously offended with her.

As they entered the parlor she said, “I didn’t think you cared about my not going out, Gerald, except on account of my taking cold; and with my shawl and nubia I don’t think there was the least danger of that.  It was such a beautiful night, I wanted to go out to meet you, dear.”

He kissed her mechanically, and replied, “I am not offended, darling.”

“Then, if the blue devils possess you, we will try Saul’s method of driving them away,” said she.  She seated herself at the piano, and asked him whether he would accompany her with voice or flute.  He tried the flute, but played with such uncertainty, that she looked at him with surprise.  Music was the worst remedy she could have tried to quiet the disturbance in his soul; for its voice evoked ghosts of the past.

“I am really tired, Lily,” said he; and, affecting a drowsiness he did not feel, he proposed retiring for the night.

The chamber was beautiful with the moon shining through its rose-tinted drapery, and the murmur of the ocean was a soothing lullaby.  But it was long before either of them slept; and when they slumbered, the same voice went singing through their dreams.  He was in the flowery parlor at New Orleans, listening to “The Light of other Days”; and she was following a veiled shadow through a strange garden, hearing the intermingled tones of “Norma” and “Toll the bell.”

It was late in the morning when she awoke.  Gerald was gone, but a bouquet of fragrant flowers lay on the pillow beside her.  Her dressing-gown was on a chair by the bedside, and Venus sat at the window sewing.

“Where is Mr. Fitzgerald?” she inquired.

“He said he war gwine to turrer plantation on business.  He leff dem flower dar, an’ tole me to say he ’d come back soon.”

The fair hair was neatly arranged by the black hands that contrasted so strongly with it.  The genteel little figure was enveloped in a morning-dress of delicate blue and white French cambric, and the little feet were ensconced in slippers of azure velvet embroidered with silver.  The dainty breakfast, served on French porcelain, was slowly eaten, and still Gerald returned not.  She removed to the chamber window, and, leaning her cheek on her hand, looked out upon the sun-sparkle of the ocean.  Her morning thought was the same with which she had passed into slumber the previous night.  How strange it was that Gerald would take no notice of that enchanting voice!  The incident that seemed to her a charming novelty had, she knew not why, cast a shadow over the first evening in their bridal home.

CHAPTER XII.