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 and they were all alight. She was always sitting just where you are now, or upstairs at the piano. She was a wonderful pianist. Have you been upstairs, into the room she turned into a music room?"

"As I told you, I have only been here an hour. This is the only room I have seen."

My tone must have struck him as wanting in cordiality, or interest.

"You didn't want me to come up to-night? "He looked through his pocketbook for Ella's letter, found it, and began to read, half aloud. How well I knew what Ella would have said to him.

"She has taken 'Carbies'; call upon her at once . . . let me know what you think . . . don't be misled by her high spirits . . ." He read it half aloud and half to himself. He seemed to expect my sympathy. "I used to come here so often, two or three times a day sometimes."

"Was she ill?" The question was involuntary. Margaret Capel was nothing to me.

"Part of the time. Most of the time."

"Did you do her any good?"

Apparently he had no great sense or sensitiveness of professional dignity. There was a strange light in his eyes, brilliant yet fitful, conjured up by the question. It was the first time he seemed to recognize my existence as a separate entity. He