She drifted from one thing to another, playing snatches of old songs,
woven together by modulations of her own making. At last she paused to
think of something else, but her fingers remembered, and began, almost
of their own accord:

[Illustration: musical notation.]

Allison stirred restlessly, as he recalled how he had heard it before.
He saw the drifted petals of fallen roses, the moon-shadow on the dial,
hours wrong, the spangled cobwebs in the grass and the other spangles,
changed to faint iridescence in the enchanted light as Isabel came
toward him and into his open arms. Could marble respond to a lover's
passion, could dead lips answer with love for love, then Isabel might
have yielded to him at least a tolerant tenderness. He saw her now,
alien and apart, like some pale star that shone upon a barren waste, but
never for him.

Another phrase, full of love and longing, floated up the stairway and
entered his room, a guest unbidden.

[Illustration: musical notation.]

He turned to the nurse. "Ask Miss Bernard to come up for a few minutes,
will you?"

"Do you think it's wise?" she temporised.

"Please ask her to come up," he said, imperatively. "Must I call her
myself?"