"We're all alone, we're all alone!
The moon and stars are dead and gone,
The night's at deep, the winds asleep,
And thou and I are all alone!
"What care have we, though life there be?
Tumult and life are not for me!
Silence and sleep about us creep:
Tumult and life are not for thee!
"How late it is since such as this
Had topped the height of breathing bliss!
And now we keep an iron sleep,—
In that grave thou, and I in this!"
Her voice yet shivered through the room, he struck a chord of dead conclusion, the curtain stirred, she emerged from the gloom and was gone.
Mr. Raleigh rose and bade his cousin good-night. Mrs. McLean, however, took his arm and sauntered with him down the lawn.
"I thought Capua came with you," she remarked.
"He returned in a spare wherry, some time since," he replied; and thereon they made a few paces in silence.
"Roger," said the little lady, taking breath preparatory to wasting it, "I thought Helen was a coquette. I've changed my mind. The fault is yours."
He turned and looked down at her with some surprise.
"You know we haven't much more time, and certainly"——