Meantime, in the dining room at Sky Top hotel, there was a certain flutter of excitement as there entered, just from the train, the party of Mr. Ellsworth, president of the new railway company now building northward.  Ellsworth beckoned Porter Barkley to him for talk of business nature, so that Constance sat well-nigh alone when Madame Alicia Donatelli came sweeping in, tall, comely, sombre, and, it must be confessed, hungry.  Donatelli hesitated politely, and Constance made room for her with a smile and gesture, which disarmed the Donatelli hostility for all well-garbed and well-poised young women of class other than her own.

“And you’re going up the country still farther?” asked Donatelli, catching a remark made by one of the men.  “I wish I could go as well.  You go by buckboard?”

Constance nodded.  “I like it,” said she.  “I am sure we shall enjoy the ride up to Heart’s Desire.”

“Heart’s Desire?” repeated the diva, with an odd smile.

Constance saw the smile and challenged it.  “Yes,” she replied briefly, “I was there once before.”

“What is it like?” asked Donatelli.

“Like nothing in the world—­yet it’s just a little valley shut in by the mountains.”

“A man was here from Heart’s Desire last night,” began Donatelli.  “You know, I am a singer.  He had heard in some way.  My faith!  He came more than a hundred miles, and he said from Heart’s Desire.  I’ve wondered what the place was like.”

The Donatelli face flushed hotly in spite of herself.  A queer expression suddenly crossed that of Constance Ellsworth as well.  She wondered who this man could be!

“It was just a couple of campers who travelled down by wagon,” explained the diva.  “Only one of them came up to the house.  Their camp is by the springs, a half mile or so down the east side.  He told me they had no music at Heart’s Desire.”

In the heart of Constance Ellsworth there went on jealous questionings.  Who was this man from Heart’s Desire, who had come a hundred miles to hear a bit of music?  What other could it be than one?  And as to this opera singer, surely she was beautiful, she had charm.  So then—­

Constance excused herself and returned to her room.  She did not even descend to say farewell to Donatelli and her bedraggled company, who steamed away from Sky Top slopes in the little train whose whistlings came back triumphantly.  She admitted herself guilty of ignoble joy that this woman—­a singer, an artist, a beautiful and dangerous woman as she felt sure—­was now gone out of her presence, as indeed she was gone out of her life.  But as to this man from Heart’s Desire, how came it that he was not here at the hotel, near to his operatic divinity?  Why did he not appear to say farewell?

Ellsworth and Barkley betook themselves to the gallery after breakfast, and paced up and down, each with his cigar.  “I ordered our head engineer, Grayson, to meet us,” said Ellsworth, “and he ought to be camped not far away.  I told him not to crowd the location so that those Heart’s Desire folks would get wind of our plans.  For that matter, we don’t want to take those men for granted, either.  Somehow, Barkley, I believe we’ve got trouble ahead.”