She looked toward Farnham, but the mother answered, “Sing ’Douglas’——­”

“Oh, no, Mamma, not that.”

“Why not?  You were singing it last night.  I like it better than any other of your songs.”

“I do not want to sing it to-night.”

Mrs. Belding persisted, until at last Alice said, with an odd expression of recklessness, “Oh, very well, if you must have it, I will sing it.  But I hate these sentimental songs, that say so much and mean nothing.”  Striking the chords nervously she sang, with a voice at first tremulous but at last full of strong and deep feeling, that wail of hopeless love and sorrow: 

   “Could you come back to me, Douglas, Douglas,
     In the old likeness that I knew,
   I would be so faithful, so loving,
     Douglas, Douglas, Douglas, tender and true.”

There had been tears of vexation in her eyes when her mother had forced her to sing this song of all others; but after she had begun, the music took her own heart by storm, and she sang as she had never sung before—­no longer fearing, but hoping that the cry of her heart might reach her lover and tell him of her love.  Farnham listened in transport; he had never until now heard her sing, and her beautiful voice seemed to him to complete the circle of her loveliness.  He was so entranced by the full rich volume of her voice, and by the rapt beauty of her face as she sang, that he did not at first think of the words; but the significance of them seized him at last, and the thought that she was singing these words to him ran like fire through his veins.  For a moment he gave himself up to the delicious consciousness that their souls were floating together upon that tide of melody.  As the song died away and closed with a few muffled chords, he was on the point of throwing himself at her feet, and getting the prize which was waiting for him.  But he suddenly bethought himself that she had sung the song unwillingly and had taken care to say that the words meant nothing.  He rose and thanked her for the music, complimented her singing warmly, and bidding both ladies good night, went home, thrilled through and through with a deeper emotion than he had yet known, but painfully puzzled and perplexed.

He sat for a long time in his library, trying to bring some order into his thoughts.  He could not help feeling that his presence was an embarrassment and a care to Alice Belding.  It was evident that she had a great friendship and regard for him, which he had troubled and disturbed by his ill-timed declaration.  She could no longer be easy and natural with him; he ought not to stay to be an annoyance to her.  It was also clear that he could not be himself in her presence; she exercised too powerful an influence upon him to make it possible that he could go in and out of the house as a mere friend of the family.  He was thus driven to the thought which always lay so near to the surface with him, as with so many of his kind; he would exile himself for a year or two, and take himself out of her way.  The thought gave him no content.  He could not escape a keen pang of jealousy when he thought of leaving her in her beautiful youth to the society of men who were so clearly inferior to her.