She noticed the man's
relentless gaze and faltered. When the burden came, her singing was hard
and cracked: the tremour had gone from her voice.
III
Long before the appointed time Ernest walked up and down in front of the
abode of Reginald Clarke, a stately apartment-house overlooking
Riverside Drive.
Misshapen automobiles were chasing by, carrying to the cool river's
marge the restlessness and the fever of American life. But the bustle
and the noise seemed to the boy only auspicious omens of the future.
Jack, his room-mate and dearest friend, had left him a month ago, and,
for a space, he had felt very lonely. His young and delicate soul found
it difficult to grapple with the vague fears that his nervous brain
engendered, when whispered sounds seemed to float from hidden corners,
and the stairs creaked under mysterious feet.
He needed the voice of loving kindness to call him back from the valley
of haunting shadows, where his poet's soul was wont to linger overlong;
in his hours of weakness the light caress of a comrade renewed his
strength and rekindled in his hand the flaming sword of song.
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