At the request of the colonel Clarice sung for them, and when she had done so she turned and asked:
“Do you not sing, Miss Arden?”
“Yes, I am devoted to music,” was the simple reply.
Urged to sing, she sat down to Clarice Carr’s harp which stood nearest to her side, and she had only to run her fingers over the strings to show that it was an artist’s hands that touched them. Then in a rich, melodious contralto she sang that old but charming ballad:
I cannot sing those old songs,
We’ve sung so oft together.
Her hearers listened breathlessly, for her voice stirred their inmost hearts, and, when she had ceased, she said softly:
“I do not know why I sang that song, for it was my brother’s favorite, and we often have sung together, for he has a superb voice, or, rather, had when I knew him in the long ago.”
It was her first reference to her outlaw brother since entering the house, and, brave men that they were, Colonel Dunwoody and Major Lester felt the tears dimming their eyes in sympathy for the beautiful girl.
But she quickly said, as though to destroy the effect she had caused by her song: