As he was about to go out, there came a sound--a low, gentle,
whispered word.
"Jan!"
He turned. Melisse stood in her door. She had not undressed, and her
hair was still done up in its soft coils, with the crimson bakneesh
shining in it. She came to him hesitatingly, until she stood with her
two hands upon his arm, gazing into his tense face with that same
question in her eyes.
"Jan, you were not pleased with me to-night," she whispered. "Tell me,
why?"
"I was pleased with you, Melisse," he replied.
He took one of the hands that was clinging to his arm, and turned his
face to the open night. Countless stars gleamed in the sky, as they
had shone on another night fifteen years ago. From where they stood
they saw the pale flicker of the aurora, sending its shivering arrows
out over the dome of the earth, with the same lonely song that it had
played when the woman died. Gaunt and solitary, the tall spruce loomed
up against the silver glow, its thick head sighing faintly in the
night wind, as if in wailing answer to that far-away music in the
skies.
Suddenly there leaped up from Jan Thoreau's breast a breath that burst
from his lips in a low cry.
"Melisse, Melisse, it was just fifteen years ago that I came in
through that forest out there, starved and dying, and played my violin
when your mother died.
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