"No more running about to-night," he answered almost sternly. Then, immediately checking himself, he added, in a gentler tone: "It is imprudent in you to be out so long in the evening air; and I am really very tired, dear Lily. To-morrow I will try to ascertain which of the servants has been following you round in this strange way."
"Do you suppose any servant could sing that?" she exclaimed.
"They are nearly all musical, and wonderfully imitative," answered he. "They can catch almost anything they hear." He spoke in a nonchalant tone, but she felt his arm tremble as she leaned upon it. He had never before made such an effort to repress rage.
In tones of tender anxiety, she said: "I am afraid you are very tired, dear. I am sorry I kept you out so long."
"I am rather weary," he replied, taking her hand, and holding it in his. He was so silent as they walked toward the house, that she feared he was seriously offended with her.
As they entered the parlor she said, "I didn't think you cared about my not going out, Gerald, except on account of my taking cold; and with my shawl and nubia I don't think there was the least danger of that. It was such a beautiful night, I wanted to go out to meet you, dear."
He kissed her mechanically, and replied, "I am not offended, darling."
"Then, if the blue devils possess you, we will try Saul's method of driving them away," said she. She seated herself at the piano, and asked him whether he would accompany her with voice or flute. He tried the flute, but played with such uncertainty, that she looked at him with surprise. Music was the worst remedy she could have tried to quiet the disturbance in his soul; for its voice evoked ghosts of the past.
"I am really tired, Lily," said he; and, affecting a drowsiness he did not feel, he proposed retiring for the night.
The chamber was beautiful with the moon shining through its rose-tinted drapery, and the murmur of the ocean was a soothing lullaby. But it was long before either of them slept; and when they slumbered, the same voice went singing through their dreams. He was in the flowery parlor at New Orleans, listening to "The Light of other Days"; and she was following a veiled shadow through a strange garden, hearing the intermingled tones of "Norma" and "Toll the bell."