“I am inferior to her myself,” he thought with genuine humility; “but I feel sure I can appreciate her better than any one else she will ever be likely to meet.”

By and by he became aware that something was perplexing him, which was floating somewhere below the surface of his consciousness.  A thousand thoughts, more or less puzzling, had arisen and been disposed of during the hour that had elapsed since he left Mrs. Belding’s.  But still he began to be sure that there was one groping for recognition which as yet he had not recognized.  The more ho dwelt upon it, the more it seemed to attach itself to the song Alice had sung, but he could not give it any definiteness.  After he had gone to bed, this undefined impression of something significant attaching itself to the song besieged him, and worried him with tantalizing glimpses, until he went to sleep.

But Farnham was not a dreamer, and the morning, if it brought little comfort, brought at least decision.  He made up his mind while dressing that he would sail by an early steamer for Japan.  He sent a telegram to San Francisco, as soon as he had breakfasted, to inquire about accommodations, and busied himself during the day with arranging odds and ends of his affairs.  Coming and going was easy to him, as he rarely speculated and never touched anything involving anxious risks.  But in the afternoon an irresistible longing impelled him to the house of his neighbor.

“Why should I not allow myself this indulgence?” he thought.  “It will be only civil to go over there and announce my departure.  As all is over, I may at least take this last delight to my eyes and heart.  And I want to hear that song again.”

All day the song had been haunting him, not on account of anything in itself, but because it vaguely reminded him of something else—­ something of infinite importance, if he could only grasp it.  It hung about him so persistently, this vague glimmer of suggestion, that he became annoyed, and said at last to himself, “It is time for me to be changing my climate, if a ballad can play like that on my nerves.”

He seized his hat and walked rapidly across the lawn, with the zest of air and motion natural to a strong man in convalescence.  The pretty maidservant smiled and bowed him into the cool, dim drawing-room, where Alice was seated at the piano.  She rose and said instinctively to the servant, “Tell mamma Captain Farnham is here,” and immediately repented as she saw his brow darken a little.  He sat down beside her, and said: 

“I come on a twofold errand.  I want to say good-by to you, and I want you to sing ‘Douglas’ for me once more.”

“Why, where are you going?” she said, with a look of surprise and alarm.

“To Japan.”

“But not at once, surely?”

“The first steamer I can find.”

Alice tried to smile, but the attempt was a little woful.

“It will be a delightful journey, I am sure,” she faltered, “but I can’t get used to the idea of it, all at once.  It is the end of the world.”