And Tristram, watching her, knew not what to think.  For her face had become more purely white than usual, and her dark eyes were swimming with tears.

God! how she must have loved this man!  In wild rage he stalked beside her until they came quite close to the statue in the center of the star, surrounded by its pergola of pillars, which in the summer were gay with climbing roses.

Then he stepped forward, with a sharp exclamation of annoyance, for the pipes of Pan had been broken and lay there on the ground.

Who had done this thing?

When Zara saw the mutilation she gave a piteous cry; to her, to the mystic part of her strange nature, this was an omen.  Pan’s music was gone, and Mirko, too, would play no more.

With a wail like a wounded animal’s she slipped down on the stone bench, and, burying her face in her muff, the tension of soul of all these days broke down, and she wept bitter, anguishing tears.

Tristram was dumbfounded.  He knew not what to do.  Whatever was the cause, it now hurt him horribly to see her weep—­weep like this—­as if with broken heart.

For her suffering was caused by remembrance—­remembrance that, absorbed in her own concerns and heart-burnings over her love, she had forgotten the little one lately; and he was far away and might now be ill, and even dead.

She sobbed and sobbed and clasped her hands, and Tristram could not bear it any longer.

“Zara!” he said, distractedly.  “For God’s sake do not cry like this!  What is it?  Can I not help you—­Zara?” And he sat down beside her and put his arm round her, and tried to draw her to him—­he must comfort her whatever caused her pain.

But she started up and ran from him; he was the cause of her forgetfulness.

[Illustration:  “‘Zara!’ he said distractedly....  ’Can I not help you?’”]

“Do not!” she cried passionately, that southern dramatic part of her nature coming out, here in her abandon of self-control.  “Is it not enough for me to know that it is you and thoughts of you which have caused me to forget him!—­Go!  I must be alone!”—­and like a fawn she fled down one of the paths, and beyond a great yew hedge, and so disappeared from view.

And Tristram sat on the stone bench, too stunned to move.

This was a confession from her, then—­he realized, when his power came back to him.  It was no longer surmise and suspicion—­there was some one else.  Some one to whom she owed—­love.  And he had caused her to forget him!  And this thought made him stop his chain of reasoning abruptly.  For what did that mean?  Had he then, after all, somehow made her feel—­made her think of him?  Was this the secret in her strange mysterious face that drew him and puzzled him always?  Was there some war going on in her heart?

But the comforting idea which he had momentarily obtained from that inference of her words went from him as he pondered, for nothing proved that her thoughts of him had been of love.