years ago? He was such a handsome, talented fellow. He and I
inherited our love of music from our grandfather. My cousin got into
a musical set at college, studied with enthusiasm, and wanted to
take it up professionally. He had promised, one Christmas vacation,
to sing at a charity concert in town, and went out, when only just
recovering from influenza, to fulfil this engagement. He had a
relapse, double pneumonia set in, and he died in five days from
heart failure. My poor aunt was frantic with grief; and since then
any mention of my love of music makes her very bitter. I, too,
wanted to take it up professionally, but she put her foot down
heavily. I scarcely ever venture to sing or play here."

"Why not elsewhere?" asked Garth Dalmain. "We have stayed about at
the same houses, and I had not the faintest idea you sang."

"I do not know," said Jane slowly. "But--music means so much to me.
It is a sort of holy of holies in the tabernacle of one's inner
being. And it is not easy to lift the veil."

"The veil will be lifted to-night," said Myra Ingleby.

"Yes," agreed Jane, smiling a little ruefully, "I suppose it will."

"And we shall pass in," said Garth Dalmain.




CHAPTER V