Millions of tiny bells were
ringing through the forest. So low, so golden, so remote they sounded,
that they might have hung in the stars above or in the deeps of the
earth. He listened so intently for a moment that life seemed suspended,
and he saw neither the cool dark forest nor the silver ripple of the
Hudson, but a torn and desolate land, and a gravestone at his feet. Then
he passed his hand over his forehead with a long breath, and went softly
into the drawing-room.
Angelica sat at the piano, with her head thrown back, her long fair hair
hanging to the floor. Her dark eyes were blank, but her fingers shook
from the keys the music of a Tropic night. It was a music that Hamilton
had not sent a thought after since the day he landed in America,
thirty-one years ago. It had come to her, with other memories, by direct
inheritance.
He went to the dining room hastily and poured out a glass of wine. When
he returned, Angelica, as he expected, was half lying in a chair, white
and limp.
"Drink this," he said, in the bright peremptory manner to which his
children were accustomed.
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