The Argosy — page 353: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

334 Between the Songs. “Why no, madame, certainly not,” he answered, in astonishment. “TI did not go over to the old house on the common; I did not find everything unchanged ; I did not see myself asleep in my own bed?—Oh, heaven !—as I was at seventeen—I did not?” she per- sisted, breathlessly. ‘‘ Madame ?” stammered the mayor. The dead silence of a minute fell upon them—a strange new light of recognition creeping slowly into the face of the mayor. The blind was still down on the window—still slightly open ; the wind and the roar of the sea sighing through it together. Suddenly he spoke in a low, moved voice. ‘The doctor, and his three sons—and his daughter—I remember them quite well. They used to live, something like twenty years ago, in the old house on the common. After the daughter went away, trouble—disgrace, incident on the conduct of one of the sons, fell on the rest of the family. They sailed together for Canada.” ‘Can you help me to find them ?” she said, almost in a whisper. ‘Perhaps. I can, at all events, try,” he answered, in the same way. “Hush,” she said, as a footstep sounded in the passage—adding, hastily : ‘‘ Pull up the blind and let me see. It was, then, that I fell asleep. I had not the nerve to do it.” He hesitated—his lips trembling, as if in the desire to say some- thing in remonstrance. * Pull it up,” she panted. Without another word he turned and did as she bade him. The long straggling grass was waving to and fro, fair down, uninterruptedly, to where the waves, beating against the shore, sprang foaming and sparkling high into the air. The old house on the common was gone. “It was burned to the ground,” the mayor murmured brokenly, ‘‘upon the very night after they sailed for Canada. ‘The place has been just as you see it, ever since then.” Five minutes later Madame Albranzo swept smiling across the brilliant platform, amidst a storm of enthusiastic bravos and a shower of bouquets, to sing her second song. ‘Those who had heard her often, and at her best, afterwards declared that she had never, never sung so beautifully, [email protected]