It was late that night when the artist returned to his room, after dining with his sculptor friend at a restaurant near by. The moonlight flooded the studio, lighting its farthest corner. It showed him the vases of rose-bloom and the dark-browed Circe on the wall; it showed him the blackened hearth, where the embers still smouldered. And what was that in the fireplace? A charred wooden frame with a heap of ashes lying 'twixt its sides. Graham sprang forward with a cry of apprehension, and lifted the blistered frame. His fear had not been groundless: this bit of wood and that handful of cinders were all that remained of his great new picture! He gave a deep groan and staggered back against the wall. Before him, on the easel, gleaming through the pure silver light, was the picture of The Lovers. Millicent's dreamy face, radiant with hope and love, smiled at him from the arms of the lover who now stood, half crazed with grief, gazing at the ruin before him.

The young sculptor stood beside him, full of a sympathy he knew not how to express. At last he spoke:--

"Graham, look up, and do not grieve for what is past help. I tell you, man, that your greatest picture stands before you. The Lovers has the one quality which your work has heretofore missed. It is human, it is full of natural sentiment. It does not appeal to an aristocracy of thought, but to all men and all women, learned and untaught. I know not what influence swayed you in this picture, but I know that it lifted you to a higher plane than you had before attained. I care not for the loss of your Poet; it told me nothing of you that I did not know before; it was a step backwards to the time when you made that wondrous wicked Circe with her herd of swine. Let it go, and submit to the influence which inspired this picture, for which the world is richer to-day than for a score of such works as the other."

Graham looked at the speaker with doubting eyes. The words seemed to rouse an echo in his soul. They told him that he had served the altar of Art with Moloch sacrifices. Instead of the peaceful offerings of love, he had brought the anguish of two strong hearts to desecrate her temple. A dim perception of the truth entered his mind, and his grief for the lost picture was for a moment forgotten in a doubt which rose before him, never to be dismissed again until it was fully solved. A doubt of self, of his own judgment, of his own inflexible will.

Millicent was gone! The six straight redwoods whispered the news one to another, and shook their tall tops sadly, while the sweet south wind sighed through their branches. Millicent was gone! and the roses that clasped and clung about her lattice died on the night she left them, and the vine bloomed no more, and bore for that season nothing but leaves.

Millicent was gone! She had set wide the door of the golden prison where her love-birds had lived and sung so merrily through the long summer.

But the little white creatures, prison-born, prison-bred, were too timid to venture out into the roomy forest, and had clung to the only home they had ever known; and so Barbara, gentle, sweet-souled Barbara, took them into her sunny room; and cared for them as Millicent had done. For a day they were silent, and then they sang as merrily as before. There was still sunshine; and crispy groundsel and clear cool water were given them by hands as gentle, if not so fair, as those which had tended them before.

The New Year was at hand, and the _chatelaine_ of the San Rosario Ranch had summoned a group of friends to her hospitable home to pa.s.s the holiday time. So Barbara was full of household cares, and Hal was busy with shooting and riding expeditions. Ferrara was there, just back from Alaska, with a tribute of rare furs to lay at Barbara's pretty feet.

Maurice Galbraith and John Graham were missing, and that other whose absence was still keenly felt. Mr. and Mrs. Shallop, O'Neil, and Hartley were come, with a half dozen other old friends, all bound together by the magnetic influence which radiated from their hostess, in whom all their various interests were concentrated. Each was friend to other for her sake, whom they all loved. In the existence of every one of the group her pure and unselfish nature was a real factor. When faith in human nature, in one's self, is faint and wavering, then is the time when the remembrance of such a spotless life, so pure a heart, steadies the wavering belief in truth, and strengthens us to fight the good fight. By loving help and by high example, Marianne Deering had succored and befriended each of the friends who on that New Year's eve a.s.sembled about her dining table. With a face bright with that beauty of the soul which knows not the marring of time, she presided over the gay festivity. Three pretty cousins from San Francisco added their bright faces to the charming scene. The apartment and the board were garlanded with flowers. Banks of heavy ferns panelled the walls, and bunches of white, heavy-scented magnolias were outlined against their dark green. Through the open windows were seen the gay lanterns hung about the veranda, illuminating the festoons of fresh creepers, and giving glimpses of the soft velvet turf outside. The merriment was at its height as Barbara lifted the loving-cup, filled with a sweet, strong wine, and, calling out the toast, "To absent friends," set her rosy lips to the brim, and drank from the cup in which each of the joyful company was to pledge some distant dear one. It was a custom at the San Rosario Ranch which had become time-honored. The girl smiled gayly as she pa.s.sed the crystal beaker to Juan Ferrara, who sat upon her right; but her eyes were dark with unshed tears, and the man sighed as he drank, omitting to repeat the toast. What were absent friends to him beside this woman who smiled in his face, but whose tears fell for one who was far from her!

Round went the cup from hand to hand, and to every heart came a thrill of joy or sorrow at the thought of the absent one, toward whom it turned in this loving communion. O'Neil, sitting by his hostess, was the last to take the cup. The warm-blooded Irishman was in high spirits. The glances of the dark-eyed "girling" at his side, and the general good-fellowship of the occasion, had brought out in him the irrepressible good-humor of his nation. The ceremony of pa.s.sing the loving-cup, and the invocation to absent friends, had carried something a little serious with it, which, to the jolly Irishman, was thoroughly antagonistic.

"Dear hostess," said he, placing the cup before him on the table, "I do not like the sentiment of your toast; 't is ungallant. How can I, sitting between two such lovely ladies, find time or power to salute an absent one, howsoever fair? May I give you my toast for the loving-cup?

Have I your permission to sing a stave from one of my national songs on the subject?"

He was answered by a general acclamation of a.s.sent. Rising to his feet, the blond, burly giant held up the cup with its low ebb of crimson wine, and sang in a clear, strong voice the following couplet:--

"Oh! 't is sweet to think that where'er we rove We are sure to find something blissful and dear, And that, when we 're far from the lips that we love, We 've but to make love to the lips that are near.

The heart, like a tendril accustomed to cling, Let it grow where it will, cannot flourish alone, But will lean to the nearest and loveliest thing It can twine with itself, and make closely its own.

Then oh! what pleasure where'er we rove To be sure to find something still that is dear; And to know, when far from the lips that we love, We have but to make love to the lips that are near."

Amidst the general laughter and applause which followed O'Neil's song, Madame Marianne's gentle word of disapproval was lost. The song had restored the jollity which, for a moment, seemed to have left the party.

O'Neil now drained the cup to the last drop, turning the crystal vessel upside down to show that it was empty, and whispered a saucy compliment to the bright-eyed girl beside him. At that moment, when the merriment was at its height, when O'Neil stood with the empty cup in his hand, the door opened, and, as if in answer to the toast, John Graham entered the room. He was greeted by a dozen voices as he made his way to Mrs.

Deering's side. Taking her outstretched hand in his own, he dropped upon one knee, and kissed it respectfully.

"Dear my lady, I have come to wish you the happiest New Year, and to join in your loving-cup, in your toast to absent friends--"

"Always welcome, dear Graham," said the lady, laying her hand upon his head for an instant; "there is always a place for you at our table, but alas--"

"You are too late--too late!"

It was Barbara who spoke, interrupting her mother brusquely, her voice full of a reproach inexplicable to all but Graham. He looked at her fixedly for a moment, and then O'Neil clapped him on the back, and held up the empty cup.

"Too late, old fellow, as Miss Barbara says. Never mind," in a lower key, "I have promised Deering to brew an Irish punch, after the ladies withdraw."

The artist stared a moment at the goblet, and shivered as he took the place which had been made for him beside his hostess. Soon the signal was given for the ladies to leave the room; Graham's arrival having precipitated the breaking up of the party. The new-comer did not long remain in the dining-room, but presently followed his hostess into the library, where he found Barbara at the piano. Mrs. Deering signalled him to take a place at her side.

"I fear I took too great a liberty in coming unasked. O'Neil says I stalked into the room like a stage ghost, and cast a gloom over the party."

"You know you are always welcome here. You used to call the Ranch your home."

"Have I still a right to do so? Things seem so changed, my lady."

"You will never find me changed while I can help you. I did not send for you, knowing that you would come if it was best for you."

"And yet I came too late!"

"Graham, there are no such words as too late to those who know how to wait. That phrase is only for the impatient, not for the steadfast. But now tell me of yourself, of your work; it is so long since we have seen you."

"Of myself, no! of my work, yes. I have finished my picture; it has gone to Paris. It will now be judged by other men." He did not tell her of his loss, or that he had sent The Lovers in the place of the burned picture.

"May they prove kindly critics."

"No, I do not want that; I do not insist that they shall praise my work; I only question, can they understand it?"

"But that is the least of it all, you have sometimes said."

"Ah! Madonna, I have been wrong. What use is there for me to speak if there be no one to hear? If they do not understand, the fault must lie in me. I must learn to speak the broad language of humanity. I cannot ask men to puzzle themselves with my small vernacular." The man sighed deeply, and his friend noticed that he was paler and thinner than she had last seen him.

"You have been over-working, Graham; you lead an unnatural life when you are in town, now that your people are away. Why not come back to the tower again?"

"I think I will, Madonna."

He had been over-working, and for what? That the picture for which he had sacrificed so much, should be seen one brief hour by a dozen men!

He now felt in what a strained condition his nerves had been. The picture was gone, and with it the strong excitement which had kept him alive and alert. The tension was relaxed, and an intense depression had followed, which was in turn losing itself in a new feeling. A lonely longing, a craving for a tender womanly sympathy, for the only human being who had never misunderstood his many moods, who was always in sympathy with him in joy or sorrow. She alone in all the world could have helped him at this time; to her he could have confided all those delicate shades of thought which drifted through his mind, too fragile ever to be prisoned in words. She could have divined those half-formed ideas and crystallized them into steadfast utterances. He was cold, bitterly cold, and suffered for that loving human sympathy as the parched hillsides had but now longed for the refreshing rain which had made the earth green and fair after the long summer drought. He had chosen Art for his mistress, and she had smiled upon him chastely and coolly; and yet he was not content.

Barbara left the piano, and Graham joined her. The over-punctilious courtesy with which he had always treated her was forgotten. He spoke suddenly and sharply:--

"What did you mean by what you said to me,--why am I too late?"

"I meant too late for a draught from the loving-cup."

"You meant more than that."

"If you choose to fancy--"

"I cannot but choose to _know_."

By this time the gay group from the dining-room had flooded the library with their ringing voices, their merry faces. Only these two were pale and out of harmony with the scene. Barbara, with downcast eyes, stood by the piano, tapping her fingers nervously on the polished case.

"I have interrupted your festivity; I have been a very skeleton at the feast; forgive me,--I could not help coming,--forgive me and answer me one question, and I will go and leave you in peace."

"I say, Bab, we are going into the drawing-room to tell ghost stories.

O'Neil has a splendid one,--a real Irish family banshee yarn. Come on, you and Graham."

"In a moment, Hal, don't wait for us; we will join you before you are all settled and Mr. O'Neil has begun."

The library was again empty. The voices of the holiday folk reached their ears across the hall.

"Tell me what you have heard from her."

There was no need of speaking her name. Her face looked at them from its place over the mantel-shelf,--a quick, strong sketch made by Graham.

From a leafy background white shoulders, and a fair face with deep eyes, were shadowed forth. The firelight, falling restlessly upon the picture, touched into light now the full red mouth, now the ivory throat.