“What an odd fish Livingston has grown to be,” said one, relighting a thin, delicate-looking cigar. “I watched him out of curiosity a while ago and was struck at the change in him.”

“Ah!” drawled the other sipping the cooling beverage. “Quite a Priuli on the whole, eh?”12

“Y-e-s! Precisely. And I have fancied that the beautiful Mrs. Briggs is his Clarisse. What do you think? She shudders every time he draws near, and sinks to the ground under the steady gaze of his eye. Odd, isn’t it?”

“Deucedly odd! About to marry Miss Vance, isn’t he?”

“That don’t count. Love is not always legitimate. If there’s anything in it, it is only a flirtation probably; that’s the style.”

“What you say is true, Skelton. Let’s drink the rest of this stuff and go down again. I know we’re missed already.”

When they had swallowed the punch and descended, the first person they saw was Livingston leaning against the door of the salon. His face was abstracted and in dead repose, there lurked about the corners of his full lips implacable resolution. The waltz was ended.

Some interminable argument was going on, generally, about the room. Conversation progressed in sharp, brisk sentences, which fell from the lips like the dropping shots of sharpshooters. There was a call for music. Molly mentally calculated her available talent and was about to give up the idea and propose something else, when she was amazed to see Dianthe rise hurriedly from her seat on an ottoman, go to the piano unattended and sit down. Unable to move with astonishment she watched in fascination the slender white fingers flash over the keys. There was a strange rigid appearance about the girl that was unearthly. Never once did she raise her eyes. At the first sharp treble note the buzz in the room was hushed at stillness. Livingston moved forward and rested his arm upon the piano fastening his gaze upon the singer’s quivering lips.

Slowly, tremulously at first, pealed forth the notes:

“Go down, Moses, way down in Egypt’s land, tell ol’ Pharaoh, let my people go.”

Scarcely was the verse begun when every person in the room started suddenly and listened with eager interest. As the air proceeded, some grew visibly pale, and not daring to breathe a syllable, looked horrified into each other’s faces. “Great heaven!” whispered Mr. Vance to his daughter. “Do you not hear another voice—beside Mrs. Briggs’?”

It was true, indeed. A weird contralto, veiled as it were, rising and falling upon every wave of the great soprano, and reaching the ear as from some strange distance. The singer sang on, her voice dropping sweet and low, the echo following it, and at the closing word, she fell back in a dead faint. Mr. Vance caught her in his arms.