not to be captured again. She knew what alone could capture her; and,
as she sat and watched the singers on the stage now, the divine notes of
that searching melody still lingering in her heart, there came a sudden
wonder whether Eglington's heart could not be wakened. She knew that it
never had been, that he had never known love, the transfiguring and
reclaiming passion. No, no, surely it could not be too late--her
marriage with him had only come too soon! He had ridden over her without
mercy; he had robbed her of her rightful share of the beautiful and the
good; he had never loved her; but if love came to him, if he could but
once realise how much there was of what he had missed! If he did not
save himself--and her--what would be the end? She felt the cords drawing
her elsewhere; the lure of a voice she had heard in an Egyptian garden
was in her ears. One night at Hamley, in an abandonment of grief-life
hurt her so--she had remembered the prophecy she had once made that she
would speak to David, and that he would hear; and she had risen from her
seat, impelled by a strange new feeling, and had cried: "Speak! speak to
me!" As plainly as she had ever heard anything in her life, she had
heard his voice speak to her a message that sank into the innermost
recesses of her being, and she had been more patient afterwards. She had
no doubt whatever; she had spoken to him, and he had answered; but the
answer was one which all the world might have heard.

Down deep in her nature was an inalienable loyalty, was a simple,
old-fashioned feeling that "they two," she and Eglington, should cleave
unto each other till death should part. He had done much to shatter
that feeling; but now, as she listened to Mario's voice, centuries of
predisposition worked in her, and a great pity awoke in her heart. Could
she not save him, win him, wake him, cure him of the disease of Self?

The thought brought a light to her eyes which had not been there for many