A thousand times she had regretted the step she had taken in writing that cruel letter before she left Glencardine.  But it was all too late.  She had tried to retract; but, alas! it was now impossible.

Tears welled in her splendid eyes at thought of the man whom she had loved so well.  The world had, indeed, been cruel to her.  Her enemies had profited by her inexperience, and she had fallen an unhappy victim of an unscrupulous blackguard.  Yes, it was only too true.  She did not try to conceal the ugly truth from herself.  Yet she had been compelled to keep Walter in ignorance of the truth, for he loved her.

A hardness showed at the corners of her sweet lips, and the tears rolled slowly down her cheeks.  Then, bestirring herself with an effort, her white fingers ran over the keys again, and in her sweet, musical voice she sang “L’Heure d’Aimer,” that pretty valse chantee so popular in Paris:—­

  Voici l’heure d’aimer, l’heure des tendresses;
  Dis-moi les mots tres doux qui vont me griser,
  Ah! prends-moi dans tes bras, fais-moi des caresses;
  Je veux mourir pour revivre sous ton baiser. 
    Emporte-moi dans un reve amoureux,
      Bien loin sur la terre inconnue,
    Pour que longtemps, meme en rouvrant les yeux,
        Ce reve continue.

      Croyons, aimons, vivons un jour;
        C’est si bon, mais si court! 
    Bonheur de vivre ici-bas diminue
        Dans un moment d’amour.

The Hour of Love!  How full of burning love and sentiment!  She stopped, reflecting on the meaning of those words.

She was not like the average miss who, parrot-like, knows only a few French or Italian songs.  Italian she loved even better than French, and could read Dante and Petrarch in the original, while she possessed an intimate knowledge of the poetry of Italy from the mediaeval writers down to Carducci and D’Annunzio.

With a sigh, she glanced around the small room, with its old-fashioned furniture, its antimacassars of the early Victorian era, its wax flowers under their glass dome, and its gipsy-table covered with a hand-embroidered cloth.  It was all so very dispiriting.  The primness of the whatnot decorated with pieces of treasured china, the big gilt-framed overmantel, and the old punch-bowl filled with pot-pourri, all spoke mutely of the thin-nosed old spinster to whom the veriest speck of dust was an abomination.

Sighing still again, the girl turned once more to the old-fashioned instrument, with its faded crimson silk behind the walnut fretwork, and, playing the plaintive melody, sang an ancient serenade: 

  Di questo cor tu m’hai ferito il core
  A cento colpi, piu non val mentire. 
  Pensa che non sopporto piu il dolore,
  E se segu cosi, vado a morire. 
  Ti tengo nella mente a tutte l’ore,
  Se lavoro, se velio, o sto a dormre ... 
  E mentre dormo ancora un sonno grato,
  Mi trovo tutto lacrime bagnato!