Then she began to sing a song which Alice Tynemouth had written and set to music two years before.

It was simply yet passionately written, and the wail of anguished disappointment, of wasted chances was in it-- "Once in the twilight of the Austrian hills, A word came to me, beautiful and good; If I had spoken it, that message of the stars, Love would have filled thy blood: Love would have sent thee pulsing to my arms, Thy heart a nestling bird; A moment fled--it passed: I seek in vain For that forgotten word." In the last notes the voice rose in passionate pain, and died away into an aching silence.
She leaned her arms on the piano in front of her and laid her forehead on them.
"When will it all end--what will become of me!" she cried in pain that strangled her heart.

"I am so bad--so bad.

I was doomed from the beginning.

I always felt it so--always, even when things were brightest.