All this time the figure at the window sat calm and composed.  It was intensely, madly provoking.  He was so very sure of me, it appeared, he would not take the trouble to enter the lists to shiver a lance with this elegant young man with the beautiful name, the beautiful lips, and with, for the last half-hour at least, the beautiful tongue.  He would not trouble himself to entertain his future wife.  He would not trouble himself even to speak.  Very well!  Very well indeed!  Did the Lieutenant like music?  If “he” did not care a jot for me, perhaps others did.  My heart beat very fast now; my cheeks burned, and my lips were parched.  A glass of water restored me to calmness, and I sat at the piano.  Herbert turned over the music, while I rattled off whatever came to my fingers’ ends,—­I did not mind or know what.  It was very fine, I dare say.  He whispered that it was “so beautiful!”—­and I answered nothing, but kept on playing, playing, playing, as the little girl in the Danish story keeps on dancing, dancing, dancing, with the fairy red shoes on.  Should I play on forever?  In the church,—­out of it,—­up the street,—­down the street,—­out in the fields,—­under the trees,—­by the wood,—­by the water,—­in cathedrals,—­I heard something murmuring,—­something softly, softly in my ear.  Still I played on and on, and still something murmured softly, softly in my ear.  I looked at the window.  The head was leaned down, and resting on both arms.  Fast asleep, probably.  Then I played louder, and faster, and wilder.

Then, for the first time, as deaf persons are said to hear well in the noise of a crowded street, or in a rail-car, so did I hear in the musical tumult, for the first time, the words of Herbert.  They had been whispered, and I had heard, but not perceived them, till this moment.

I turned towards him, looked him full in the face, and dropped both hands into my lap.  Well might I be astonished!  He started and blushed violently, but said nothing.  As for me, I was never more calm in my life.  In the face of a real mistake, all imaginary ones fell to the ground, motionless as so many men of straw.  With an instinct that went before thought, and was born of my complete love and perfect reliance on my future husband, I pushed back the music-stool, and walked straight across the room to the window.

His head was indeed leaned on his arms; but he was white and insensible.

“Come here!” I said, sternly and commandingly, to Herbert, who stood where I had left him.  “Now, if you can, hold him, while I wheel this sofa;—­and now, ring the bell, if you please.”

We placed him on the couch, and Polly came running in.

“Now, good-night, Sir; we can take care of him.  With very many thanks for your politeness,” I added, coldly; “and I will send home the book to-morrow.”

He muttered something about keeping it as long as I wished, and I turned my back on him.

“Oh! oh!—­what had he thought all this time?—­what had he suffered?  How his heart must have been agonized!—­how terribly he must have felt the mortification,—­the distress!  Oh!”