It was over a year since he had heard that voice, and he had tried to believe his heart was deadened to its influence; but now to-night, at the first sound, it thrilled him again with its old-time music.  A moment later she closed her door and the hall was dark, and his heart began to beat faster now that he grasped the truth.  He turned again to his room, filled with the soft radiance of moonlight.  He leaned back in his study chair, his eyes closed; he could hear the students of St. Michael’s chanting an evening hymn, and an occasional cab rattled past in the street below.  He noted it as we note all little details in our moments of high excitement.  Then a smile gradually lighted up his face.  Oh, sweet love!  For one moment it seemed to be mastering him.  She was there.  Hark!  Was that her footstep overhead?  Oh, to be near her—­to touch her hand just once!

Then a stern, dark frown settled on his brow.  He rose and paced the room with a sort of frenzied step.  What is she to you—­Clarence Mayfair’s promised wife?  Arthur Grafton, what is she to you?  Oh, that love, deep and passionate, that comes to us but once!  That heart-cry of a strong soul for the one being it has enshrined!  Sometimes it is gratified and bears in after years its fruits, whether sweet or bitter; or again, it is crushed—­blighted in one moment, perhaps—­and we go forth as usual trying to smile, and the world never knows, never dreams.  A few years pass and our hearts grow numb to the pain, and we say we have forgotten—­that love can grow cold.  Cold?  Yes; but the cold ashes will lie there in the heart—­the dust of our dead ideal!  Would such a fate be Arthur’s?  No.  There was no room in that great pulsing heart of his for anything that was cold—­no room for the chill of forgetfulness.  Strive as he might, he knew he could never forget.  What then remained?  Even in that hour a holier radiance lighted his brow.  Strong to bear the burdens and sorrows of others, he had learned to cast all his care upon One who had never forsaken him—­even his unrequited love.  He laid it on the altar of his God, to bloom afresh, a beauteous flower transplanted by the River of Life, beyond the blight of envy and of care—­beyond, yet near enough to earth to scatter its fragrance in blessings down upon the head of her whom he—­loved!  Dare he say that word?  Yes, in a sweeter, holier sense than before, as one might love the beings of another world.  His face was quite calm as he turned on the light to resume his studies, but before beginning his work he looked a little sadly around the room.  Yes, he had spent pleasant hours there, but he must leave, now.  It was better that the same roof should not shelter them both.  He did not wish to see Beth Woodburn again; and he just remembered that a friend of his was going to vacate a room on the other side of the park.  He would take it early next week.

It was a week later, one afternoon, just before tea, that Beth and Mabel Clayton were sitting in the drawing-room with Mrs. Owen.