"I WILL NEVER HUMBLE MYSELF TO YOU AGAIN."
Fare thee well, and if forever,
Still forever fare thee well,
Even though unforgiving, never
'Gainst thee shall this heart rebel.
Byron.
Helen Fox was a very bright girl. She did not tell Kathleen that Ralph Chainey frequently visited the house, nor did she mention to him that Kathleen was to be her guest. Yet she knew very well that the unhappy young lovers were sure to meet under her roof.
And, in fact, Kathleen had not been twenty-four hours at Helen's when George Fox encountered Ralph somewhere, and dragged him home with him.
Kathleen was playing and singing for Helen. Her back was turned to the door, so she did not know when the two young gentlemen entered and silently seated themselves, obeying a gesture from Helen.
The young girl, unconscious of her lover's presence, sung on, sweetly and sadly:
"One word is too often profaned,
For me to profane it,
One feeling too falsely disdained
For thee to disdain it.
One hope is too like to despair,
For prudence to smother,
And Pity from thee more dear
Than that from another.
"I can give not when men call love,
But wilt thou accept not—
The worship the heart lifts above
And the heavens reject not,
The desire of the moth for the star,
Of the day for the morrow,
The devotion to something afar
From the sphere of our sorrow?"
The plaintive words rang in sad echoes through her lover's brain:
"The desire of the moth for the star,
Of the day for the morrow?"