"Hark!" said Artois, "it is telling me that my debt to you can never
be paid: only in one way could it be partially discharged. If I could
show you a path to happiness, the happiness you long for, and need,
the passionate happiness of the heart that is giving where it rejoices
to give--for your happiness must always be in generosity--I should
have partially paid my debt to you. But that is impossible."

"I've made you sad to-day by my complaining," she said, with self-
rebuke; "I'm sorry. You didn't realize?"

"How it was with you? No, not quite--I thought you were more at peace
than you are."

"Till to-day I believe I was half deceived too."

"That singing boy, that--what is his name?"

"Ruffo."

"That Ruffo, I should like to run a knife into him under the left
shoulder-blade. How dare he, a ragamuffin from some hovel of Naples,
make you know that you are unhappy?"

"How strange it is what outside things, or people who have no
connection with us or with our lives, can do to us unconsciously!" she
said. "I have heard a hundred boys sing on the Bay, seen a hundred
rowing their boats into the Pool--and just this one touches some
chord, and all the strings of my soul quiver."

"Some people act upon us somewhat as nature does sometimes. And Vere