that he did not hear it....  She had been listening doubtless for some time before he had seen her.  He spoke very little French, and she very little English, but he easily understood that she wished him to go on playing.  A little later her father and mother had come through the trees; she had held up her hand, bidding them be silent.  Ulick could see by the way they listened that they were musicians.  So he was invited to the villa which stood in the centre of the park, and till the end of his holiday he went there every day.  The girl—­Eliane was her beautiful name—­was an exquisite musician.  They had played Mozart in the room hung with faded tapestries, or, beguiled by the sunshine, they had walked in the park.  When Evelyn asked him what they said, he answered simply, “We said that we loved each other.”  But when he returned to Dieppe three months later, all was changed.  When he spoke of their marriage she laughed the question away, and he perceived that his visits were not desired; on returning to England, all his letters were returned to him....  Soon after she married a Protestant clergyman, and last year she had had a baby.

He sat absorbed in the memory of this passion, and Evelyn and the garden were perceived in glimpses between scenes of youthful exaltations and romantic indiscretions.  He remembered how he had threatened to throw himself from her window for no other reason except the desire of romantic action; and while he sat absorbed in the past, Evelyn watched him, nervous and irritated, striving to read in his face how much of the burden had fallen from him, and how free his heart might be to accept another love story.

As he sat in the garden under the calm cedar tree he dreamed of a reconciliation with Eliane.  He even speculated on the effect that the score of his opera would have upon her if he were to send it—­all that music composed in her honour.  But which opera?  Not “Connla and the Fairy Maiden,” for a great deal of it was crude, thin, absurd.  No; he could not send it.  But he might send “Grania.”  Yes, he would send “Grania” when he had finished it.  To arrive suddenly from England, to cast himself at her feet—­that might move her.  Then, with a sigh, “These are things we dream of,” he thought, “but never do.  Only in dreams do men set forth in quest of the ideal.”

He looked up, Evelyn’s eyes were fixed on him, and he felt like Bran returning home after his voyage to the wondrous isles.

They saw the footman coming across the green sward.  He had come to tell her that Mr. Innes was waiting for her.  She was taking him to St. Joseph’s.  But there was not room in the victoria for three, and Ulick would have to go back to London by train.

“But you will come and see me soon?  You promised to go through the ‘Isolde’ music with me.  Will you come to-morrow?”