The Choir Invisible

For behind everything else there was one thing more--deeper than anything

else, dearer, more sacred; the feeling she would never surrender that for a

while at least he had cared more for her than he had ever realized.

One mild afternoon of autumn she was walking with quiet dignity around her

garden. She had just come from town where she had given to Jouett the last

sitting of her portrait, and she was richly dressed in the satin gown and

cap of lace which those who see the picture nowadays will remember. The

finishing of it had saddened her a little; she meant to leave it to him; and

she wondered whether, when he looked into the eyes of this portrait, he

would at last understand": she had tried to tell him the truth; it was the

truth that Jouett painted.

Thus she was thinking of the past as usual; and once she paused in the very

spot where one sweet afternoon of May long ago he had leaned over the fence,

holding in his hand his big black had decorated with a Jacobin cockade, and

had asked her consent to marry Amy. Was not yonder the very maple, in the

shade of which he and she sat some weeks later while she had talked with him

about the ideals of life? She laughed, but she touched her handkerchief to

her eyes as she turned to pass on. Then she stopped abruptly.

Coming down the garden walk toward her with a light rapid step, his head in

the air, a smile on his fresh noble face, an earnest look in his gray eyes,

was a tall young fellow of some eighteen years. A few feet off he lifted his

hat with a free, gallant air, uncovering a head of dark-red hair, closely

curling.

"I beg your pardon, madam," he said, in a voice that fell on her ears like

music long remembered. "Is this Mrs. Falconer?"

"Yes," she replied, beginning to tremble, "I am Mrs. Falconer."

"Then I should like to introduce myself to you, dearest madam. I am John

Gray, the son of your old friend, and my father sends me to you to stay with

you if you will let me. And he desires me to deliver this letter."

"John Gray!" she cried, running forward and searching his face. "You John

Gray! You! Take off your hat!" For a moment she looked at his forehead and

his hair; her eyes became blinded with tears. She threw her arms around his

neck with a sob and covered his face with kisses.