Tyranny of the Dark

With a dim suspicion of her wish to cover some deception, he answered: "My entrance was quite as unpremeditated, I assure you." He spoke with returning humor. "I really came to call upon you, to welcome you to the city and to talk of the West. The usher mistook me for one of the seekers and thrust me bodily into the circle. Please believe that I acted upon sudden impulse in seizing your wrist. I am heartily ashamed of myself. I was an intruder, and had no right, no excuse--although your 'guides,' as you call them, seemed eager to have me sit beside you."

"I do not blame you," she repeated, and fell strangely silent.

He studied her with mounting pleasure. The flower-like line of her lips, her glorious bosom, the poise of her head, all the lines that had meant so much to him at their first meeting, were there, more womanly, more dangerous in their witchery than ever. For two years their thoughts had subtly crossed and intertwined, and she now felt his doubt, his question, almost as keenly as if he had uttered them.

He broke the momentary silence by saying, with a distinctly tender tone, "Are you thinking of Colorow? I am."

She flushed and started a little. "Yes."

"I was recalling my first view of you--a fragment of sunset cloud caught on a mountain-crag."

Her face grew wistful. "That seems a long time ago to me."

"It doesn't to me. It seems but yesterday. My trip that year was a symphonic poem with a most moving final movement. I have thought of it a thousand times." He paused a moment, then added: "Well, now, here you are in New York, and here I am, and what of your music? I was to advise you, you remember."

Her head lifted in defiance, an adorable gesture. "You know my secret now." It was as if she said, "Come, let us have it over."

He replied, very gently; "I knew something of it then. Dr. Britt told me something of it at the time."

Her eyes bravely searched his. "Was that why you did not come to say good-bye to us?" His glance fell in a wish that she had been less cruelly direct. She went on: "You needn't answer. I'm used to being treated that way. I knew somebody had told you I was a medium. You despised me when you found out about me--everybody does, except those who want to use me. All the people I really want to know go by on the other side as if I were a leper. It was so in Boston; it is going to be the same here."