"What shall we do next? Halloo again?" she asked, with a smile.
"I do not believe my lungs are strong enough to go over that ordeal again. The wound in my breast is not quite healed over yet," he said. "But suppose we sing instead?"
"I do not know how to sing," she answered.
"Very well; I shall have to do all the singing," he replied, good-humoredly. "And, do you know, I think it is a rather good idea to sing, for who knows but it may penetrate to the street, and if it be known that Madame Lorraine be gone away, curiosity may lead some one to investigate into the cause of the mysterious noise, and then we may be found."
"Oh, how clever you are! Do begin at once!" she exclaimed, with a hopeful light in her dark eyes.
"I will," he replied; and somehow the first song that came to his mind was a sweet, sad love song he had been used to sing with his fair young sisters in the far-off Northern home he loved so well:
"In days of old, when knights were bold,
And barons held their sway,
A warrior bold, with spurs of gold,
Sung merrily his lay:
'My love is young and fair,
My love hath golden hair,
And eyes so bright and heart so true
That none with her compare;
So what care I, tho' death be nigh,
I'll live for love or die!'
"So this brave knight, in armor bright,
Went gayly to the fray;
He fought the fight, but ere the night
His soul had passed away.
The plighted ring he wore
Was crushed and wet with gore;
Yet ere he died he bravely cried:
'I've kept the vow I swore;
So what care I, tho' death be nigh,
I've fought for love, and die—
For love I die!'"
The girl's beautiful eyes looked at the singer, dark and grave with the strange emotions swelling at her heart. She had heard Mme. Lorraine and the men from the Jockey Club sing their best, but it had not affected her like this. A strange, sweet awe stole over her, mixed with a buoyancy and lightness that was thrilling and yet solemn. With the strange, new sensation there came to her a sudden memory of the chapel at Le Bon Berger, and the soft, murmuring voices of the nuns at prayer. She felt like praying.
He looked at her curiously, and she said, with child-like directness: