fm sorry to have kept you waiting olive but i can t go with you tell lady i am very sorry i m going to my room oh my dear not going and now that you re dressed allowed herself to be persuaded if she went to bed now she would not sleep she went to the ball with lady and as she went round in the giving her hand first to one and then to the other she heard a voice crying within her why are you doing these things they don t interest you at all eternal night oh lovely night oh holy night of love rapture succeeded rapture and the souls of the lovers rose nearer to the surface of life in a shudder of silver he saw them float away like little clouds towards the low rim of the universe but at that moment of escape reality broke in upon the dream had betrayed them and heard king by s noble and grave reproaches like a prophecy thou my friend and deceive me he sang and his melancholy motive seemed to echo like a cry along the shore of s own life amid calm and mysteriously exalted expressive of the terror and of fate fulfilled s resolve took shape and as he fell the melancholy mark motive was heard again and again asked what meaning it might have for him he heard the applause loud in the growing faint as it rose tier above tier baskets of flowers wreaths and were thrown from the boxes or handed up from the the curtain was rung up again and her name was called from different parts of the theatre and when the curtain was down for the last time he saw her in the middle of the stage talking to and the garden scene was being carried away and to escape from it took s hand and ran to the spot where was standing she the hand of her stage lover and dropping a held out two small hands to covered with violet powder the of the great love scene was still in her eyes it still he could see in her blood she had nearly thrown herself into his arms seemed regardless of those she seemed to have only eyes for him he heard her say under her breath that music me then with sudden composure but looking at him intently she asked him to come upstairs with her for the last few days he had been engaged in and last night he had been visited by dreams the significance of which he could not doubt but his reading of her had been or else he had failed to understand the answers that he was a momentous event in her life seemed clear yet all the signs were set against their marriage but what was happening had been revealed � that he should stand with her in a room where the carpet was blue and they were there that the furniture should be of last century and he examined the in the comers which were satin wood with delicate and on the walls were many and gold and mahogany frames the maid came from the dressing room you have some friends in front you can go and sit by with them i sha want you till the end when the door closed their eyes met and they trembled and were in dread come and sit by me she indicated his place by her side on the sofa we are all alone talk to me how did i sing to night never did the music ever mean so much as it did tonight he said sitting down what did it mean everything all the beauty and the woe of existence were in the music to night their thoughts wandered from the music and an effort was required to return to it do you remember she said with a little gasp in her voice how the music sinks into the slumber motive hark beloved then he answers let me die yes and with the last note the tune of the begin in the is heard warning them they sat looking at each other li sheer desperation she said � and that last phrase of all when the souls of the lovers seemed to float away over the low rim of the universe � like little clouds and then he tried to speak of his ideas but he could not collect his thoughts and after a few sentences he said i cannot talk of these things the room seemed to sway and cloud and her arms to reach out instinctively to him and she would have fallen into his arms if he had not suddenly asked her what had been decided at sir s let me kiss you he said or i shall go mad no this is not nice of you i shall not be able to ask you to my room again he let go her hand and she said � fm not going to marry sir but i must not let you kiss me but you must you must why must i do you not feel that it is to be what is to be i do not know what but i have been drawn towards by so long a while � long before i saw you ever since i heard your name the moment i saw that old photograph in the music room i knew what did you know when i heard your name it called up an image in my mind and that image has never wholly left me � it comes back often like a ghost when you were thinking of something different i am your destiny or one of your her eyes were fixed eagerly upon him his darkness and the mysteries he represented attracted her and she even felt she could follow at the same moment his eyes seemed the most beautiful 