VI.
As the music of the dance ceased, Olga Fullerton stole, unnoticed, out onto the balcony of the great house overlooking the Hudson. Precisely as she had done a year before, she sank down upon a divan with a sigh of weariness. All night the dance had been in progress at the home of the Waddingtons and now it was almost dawn.
She gazed wistfully out over the softly rippling water lapping drowsily among the rocks of the palisades. Over the great rock wall the moon was softly rising, throwing the entire river into delightful shadow.
It seemed as though it were that same wonderful night upon which she had talked with Jerold Wharton upon this same balcony over a year before, and as her thoughts returned through the solemn halls of memory, she murmured wistfully: "Thus does history repeat itself."
"Yes," said a voice speaking at her elbow, "thus does history repeat itself."
With a nervous start, her face pale with surprise, she gazed up into the eyes of Jerold Wharton.
"I arrived only a short while ago," he explained quickly, "and as soon as I heard of the dance at the Waddingtons, I came here at once."
