Something was calling her--calling and calling with the compelling note of a far-off yet insistent trumpet, and as she gazed at the mailed hand with the spear rising triumphantly out of the ruby heart, she began to understand.

A feeling of awe crept over her, that she, little Mary Ware, should be hearing the same call that Edryn heard.

Somewhere, some day, some great achievement awaited her.

Now she knew that that was why she had been born into the world.
That was why, too, that Providence had opened a way for her to come to Warwick Hall, that she might learn what was to be "the North-star of her great ambition," and how "to keep the compass needle of her soul" ever true to it.
Clasping her hands together as reverently and humbly as if she were before an altar, she looked up at the ruby heart, her face all alight, whispering Edryn's answer: "'Tis the King's call! O list! O heart and hand of mine keep tryst-- Keep tryst or die!" The music stopped as suddenly as it had begun, and all a-tingle with the exalted mood in which it left her, she ran up to her room and knelt by the window, looking out into the dusk with eager shining eyes.

As yet it was all vague and shadowy, that mysterious future which awaited her.
With what great duty to the universe she was to keep tryst she did not know; but whatever it was she would do it at any cost.