[Illustration:  musical notation]

Was it a ghost, or was it—?  No, she was only foolish.  Aunt Francesca had promised not to tell, and she never broke her word.  Besides, why should he seek her?

[Illustration:  musical notation]

“It’s only someone who has stopped in passing,” Rose thought, “to ask the way to the next town, or to get a glass of water, or—­I won’t be foolish!  I’ll go in!”

So she crossed the threshold, into the house where Love lived.

At the sound of her step, the man turned quickly, the music ending in a broken chord.

“You!” she gasped.  “Oh, how could you come!”

“By train,” answered Allison, gently, “and then by walking.  I’ve frightened you, Rose.”

“No,” she stammered sinking into a chair.  “I’m—­I’m surprised, of course.  I’m glad you’re well enough to be about again.  Did—­is anything wrong with Aunt Francesca?” she asked, anxiously.

“Indeed there isn’t.  She was blooming like a lilac bush in May, when I saw her last night.”

“Did-did—­she tell you?”

“She did not,” he returned, concisely.

“Then how—­how—?”

“I just came.  What made you think you could get away from me?”

“I wasn’t—­getting away,” she returned with difficulty.  “I was just tired—­and I came here to—­to rest—­and to work,” she concluded, lamely.  “You didn’t need me.”

“Not need you,” he cried, stretching his trembling hands toward her.  “Oh, Rose, I need you always!”

Slowly the colour ebbed from her face, leaving her white to the lips.  “Don’t,” she said, pitifully.

“Oh, I know,” he flashed back, bitterly.  “I’ve lost any shadow of right I might ever have had, because I was a blind fool, and I never had any chance anyway.  All I can do is to go on loving you, needing you, wanting you; seeing your face before me every hour of the day and night, thirsting for you with every fibre of me.  All I have to keep is an empty husk of memory—­those few weeks you were kind to me.  At least I had you with me, though your heart belonged to someone else.”

“Someone else?” she repeated, curiously.  The colour was coming back slowly now.

“Yes.  Have you forgotten you told me?  That day, don’t you remember, you said you had loved another man who did not care for you?”

Rose nodded.  Her face was like a crimson flower swaying on a slender stem.  “I said,” she began, “that I had loved a man who did not care for me, and that I always would.  Wasn’t that it?”

“Something like that.  I wish to God I could change places with him.”

“Did I,” hesitated Rose, “are you sure—­that I said—­another man, or was it just—­a man?”

“Rose!  What do you mean?”

Covered with lovely confusion, she stumbled over to the window, where she might hide her burning face from him.  “Don’t you think,” she asked, unsteadily, “that it is beautiful here?  This is Aunt Francesca’s little house, where she came when she was first married.  She always calls it ‘the little house where Love lived.’”