Page:Middle Aged Love Stories (IA middleagedlove00bacorich).djvu/172

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were so strong, the old melodies waked such confused, excited sadness in her, that the songs would not come. The sight of that keen, drooping profile dark against the orange glow reproached her somehow with its loneliness—how many weeks he would sit alone!—and she rose hastily and went out again.

"You do not sing? You have not ze mood, hein? Eh bien, not to sing, it is well sometimes."... And they sat in silence long after the stars came out.


That night Miss Sabina slept lightly. Strange, confused dreams, half-conscious delusions, troubled her with voices that she knew were unreal, that yet murmured and muttered and droned, till, in her effort to dismiss them and sink to deeper sleep, she woke with a start. Surely some one was talking! She hesitated, and from somewhere below her came the sound of a voice that rose and fell almost monotonously—not loud, but clear and continuous.