Listening to the words they all knew there was an undercurrent of meaning attached to the simple strain that a stranger would not be apt to detect. And yet Milton Nesbit understood, as well as if the story had been told him in so many words, that the gifted singer had known sorrow, and slowly his gaze sought Owen Hunter. What was it? Owen had risen from Imelda’s side, evidently unconscious that he was acting strangely, that he was, to say the least, impolite. He had neither eyes nor ears for anything else but the fair singer. As if fascinated the song drew him to her side. He repeated the words:
“Hope’s starlight shines through darkest night”—
whispering them close to the pink shell ear,
“O Cora, my own, is not the night over? May the morning now at last dawn?”
Quick as a flash Cora whirled about on her stool, and with the one glad cry, “Owen!” cast herself into his arms, regardless of the many eyes resting upon them, and was held by him in an embrace so close as if he meant never again to let her go.
As if in that one glad happy cry all her strength had been spent Cora lay back faint and white in her anxious lover’s arms. Had the sudden joy killed her? He strained her close and kissed the white cold lips; then bearing her to a couch he began chafing her hands, helplessly looking about,
“She has fainted; can no one help me restore her?”
Quickly an anxious circle gathered about her, but Paul Arthurs soon reassured them.
“It is nothing—only the reaction. She will be herself in a few moments.”
Taking a small vial from an inside pocket of his coat he forced a few drops between her lips and in a few moments had the satisfaction of seeing her open her eyes.