"Let me beg you to humor them, my child," he said, radiantly. "You have carried their warm hearts by storm. Be kind to them. Sing them something, anything to satisfy their craving."
She went back and stood before them, with bowed head and an almost divine sadness on her face. She sang some words that were "as sad as earth, as sweet as Heaven."
"I stand by the river where both of us stood,
And there is but one shadow to darken the flood;
And the path leading to it where both used to pass,
Has the step of but one to take dew from the grass;
One forlorn since that day!
"The flowers of the margins are many to see,
But none stoops at my bidding to pluck them for me;
The bird in the alder sings loudly and long,
For my low sound of weeping disturbs not his song,
As thy vow did that day.
"I stand by the river—I think of the vow—
calm as the place is, vow-breaker, be thou!
I leave the flower growing—the bird, unreproved—
Would I trouble thee rather than them, my beloved,
And my lover that day?
"Go! be sure of my love—by that treason forgiven;
Of my prayers—by the blessings they win thee from Heaven;
Of my grief—(guess the length of the sword by the sheath's)
By the silence of life more pathetic than death's!
Go! be clear of that day!"
Then the concert was over!
[CHAPTER XLII.]
The concert was over, and hastily excusing himself to his companion, Guy Kenmore made his way around to the private entrance; with some difficulty he elbowed his way through the eager throng that waited to see the lovely singer pass to her carriage, and was fortunate enough to meet her coming down the steps on the professor's arm. He touched her eagerly.