"This almost seems like getting acquainted with you and falling in love with you over again," laughed Gerelda, as she talked to him in the same gay, witty manner that had once so enthralled him in the old days. "I wonder, Hubert," she said at length, "that you have not asked me to sing or play for you. You used to be so delighted to hear me sing. While lying on my sick-bed I heard my old nurse sing a song that you desired me to learn. I have learned it now for you, Hubert. Listen to it, dear."
As Gerelda spoke she picked up a mandolin, and after striking a few softly vibrating notes, commenced to sing in a low strain the tender words of his favorite song, which she knew would be sure to find an echo in his heart, if anything in this world would.
Ah! what a wondrous voice she had, so full of pathetic music and the tenderness of wonderful love!
He listened, and something very like the old love stirred his heart.
The song had moved him, as she knew it would—ay, as nothing else in this world could ever have done.
He bowed his head, and Gerelda, looking at him keenly from under her long lashes, saw that his strong hand was shaking like an oak leaf in the wind.
He leaned over and brushed back the curls caressingly from her forehead, as a brother might have done.
"You are very good to have learned that for my sake; Gerelda," he murmured. "I thank you for it."
"We must learn to sing it together," she declared.
"My voice is not what it used to be," he said, apologetically.