"But her words ended with a sigh that contrasted strangely with the forced lightness of her tone.
"Just then we came out of the grove, and could see far off the little waves of the lake dancing in the morning sunlight. I paused a moment to pick some late wild flowers, while Eleanor walked on quickly and disappeared among the alders that fringed the lake. I was following her slowly, when suddenly I heard one wild, thrilling cry, and then my name three times repeated. I flew almost down to the water, and there I saw Eleanor unconscious; and, close to the shore, among the lilies,—white and pure as their own petals,—a face upturned to the sky, swaying gently with the motion of the water. I need not tell you whose." Anne faltered.
"Do not go on," I said, with my own eyes and voice full of tears.
She raised her head quickly.
"I had schooled myself to it, dear, before I came, and I must finish. I am telling you of another's life, not mine.
"Then there was a brain fever for Eleanor, that no one believed she would ever rally from, in which she was either unconscious, or else singing snatches of German songs, with a pathos that was heart-rending.
"It was remarkable that neither to her mother nor to any one who watched over her did her words ever betray anything that could connect her illness with anything more than the bare horror of the discovery she made. She was married the next spring; and when I saw her, a month afterward, I should never, save for merest outline and coloring of beauty, have recognized her. Until last night, the past has never been alluded to by either of us. Then she confessed to me, that during the last ten years her life has been haunted by a perpetual remorse. The sun has set, dear, we will go home."
It was dusk when we crossed the pine grove, and the branches of the trees seemed, to my quickened imagination, to be singing a sad refrain to the story I had heard. We walked slowly,—Anne with head uplifted and a serene look upon her fair face that made me realize the refiner's work.
As we drew near the house there came forth a rolling symphony from the parlor organ, and then a voice that I had never heard before, in the Agnus Dei of the Twelfth Mass.
We paused, and Anne said quietly,—"She has never sung since he died until now."