The sale had not yet begun and the crowds were drifting hither and thither, bent on preliminary inspection, jostling arms with the men from the detective agencies assigned to the occasion.

Paul found the person who seemed vested with authority and to him put his request.  The individual looked at this pale young man and recognized him.  There was a pathos in his face that could hardly be denied—­and there was no reason for denying him.

“Certainly, Mr. Burton,” he agreed.  “I’ll instruct the door-man not to let any one else in—­unless you have friends you’d like to take with you.”

Paul shook his head.  “I’d rather be alone,” he said.  But as the two elbowed their way through the crowd he found himself face to face with a dark-haired, deep-eyed woman in fashionable and becoming mourning, upon whose fingers sparkled a number of rings.  The musician halted in his tracks and turned desperately pale.  He had heard that Loraine Haswell had returned from Europe—­and he had heard vague rumors which had deeply shocked him.  If they were based on truth it seemed improbable that she would care to risk meeting any of her old associates.  Yet when his eyes encountered hers he found her laughing gaily, and he realized that, whatever else had happened to Loraine Haswell, she had lost none of her beauty.

“Loraine!” he exclaimed, his voice betraying his excitement, and she responded calmly, but with no emotion, “Good-morning, Mr. Burton.”  It was as though they had parted yesterday, but also as though they had never met, save casually, before that parting; as though their lives had never touched more intimately than in the brushing contact of passers-by.  To Paul it seemed very cruel and he was about to pass on when she stopped him.

“Mr. Burton,” she suggested, in a cautiously guarded voice, “I wish you would send back my letters.  I’m stopping at the Plaza.”

The man was silent for a moment, then he said simply: 

“I have already burned them.”

She searched his eyes for a moment, and, seeming satisfied of their truthfulness, smiled.  “That will do just as well.  Thank you.  How silly we were to write them, weren’t we?”

Paul hurried after his guide, who had been deferentially waiting a few steps distant, but at the entrance of the music-room he halted again—­and this time his cheeks blanched with a greater astonishment.  There, standing within arm’s reach, was Marcia Terroll, though her face was averted and she did not see him.

“What brings you here?” he asked in a low voice, and as she turned to face him her hands went spasmodically to her breast.

“I didn’t know that you would be here,” she said faintly, but she did not tell him that she had come in response to the same instinct which draws pilgrims to shrines hallowed by association; because this had been the temple of his art.

“They have promised,” Paul told her, “to let me have fifteen minutes in there undisturbed—­to play my organ for the last time.”  His eyes met hers and he added in an earnest undertone, “Won’t you go with me, Marcia?”