THE REFINER'S FIRE.

Evening Star, Issue 11454, 23 January 1901, Page 7

THE REFINER'S FIRE.

CHAPTER I. | AN TTNREBEAKSED DUET. 1 Jocelyn yawned. Then he put his cigar-| I tte back in his mouth and stretched. Thenf le yawned again. I Naturally enough the cigarette- fell out ofl Ihis mouth and alighted on his flannels. Ini 'the middle of his third yawn he jumped* "up with a short but expressive exclamation,! to find that the cigarette had already eaten! ia hole in the stuff, and was starting hunigrily on the flesh of hia log. Strange to say, he was not angry ; in face le was rather pleased. It was an event — "the first that had happened for two long dreary days. He welcomed it and made the most of it. Ho examined the hole, put the tip of his little finger in it, and rubbed away ithe charred flannel round the edge; he •picked up the cigarette, which had begun to make a third course of the hearthrug, and dropped it carefully into the empty grate behind the perforated cardboard ■screen. Then he began the serious business •of thinking out plans for changing his ■trousers. Should he. go and change first, and then .ring for Miss Titmuss or Miss Amelia to ■ask if she would darn the hole for him, or should he ring first and change afterwards? It was a momentous question. He sat down in the arm chair to think it out, and—half an hour later he was still yawning in the chair, having. neither rung the bell nor changed. What in the name of goodness, he wondered, had induced him to come to Ditchway ? The facts he know well enough; that his doctor (bother the man!) had told him he must have a complete rest, that If must go into the country where there would be no one to worship him, and above all things must leave his fiddle behind. Whereupon Jocelyn had started on his bicycle to look for the quietest place in the world. He found it in the first few hours of liif wanderings, within thirty miles of London, of course; the very quietest, quaintest, sleepiest place that ever lay three miles, from a good road at the end of an impossible! lane. Not a house in it had been built or* repaired for a century; there were no} clocks, no drains, no shops; the veryjj people looked as if they had not heard ofl the death of Queen Anne. For a popular] violinist who was worn to a skeleton with: • the labors and pleasures of the season there* could be no better resting place than this! honeysuckle and rose-clad forgotten village.! He had found it by the merest accident.? He -was "coasting" down a gentle incline? and gaining rapidly on a pony trap, when J suddenly from immediately beneath him] came a terrific report. The pony, friirht-j cned out. of its wits, sat off at a gallop;! the driver looked round in alarm, as if heexpected to see a maniac, armed with a r J "blunderbuss, making after him. Jocelyn| only laughed. The terrible jar that up and down his spine told him that hisi back tyre had burst. ji He looked about him. On his right hand? lay the entrance to the impossible lane,| which just there looked fairly innocent. H The signboard said " Ditchway, three miles."? The milestone on the other side of the| road said "Hadstonc, six mileH." | " If I've got to walk," said Jocelyn, " l"d| rather walk three miles than six in thisl heat, and there's a bicycle shop in every! village nowadays. I will go and have as look at Ditchway." , 1 He found it to be exactly the place which! his doctor had recommended, and decided to't try staying there. At one end of the was a little house where the Misses Titmussf would be very glad to let him have a couple* of rooms. No; there was no bicycle shop) in Ditchway. Jocelyn left his bicycle in| the washhouse and walked three miles alongj to telegraph for his things. | All that, however, did not seem to ac-| count for his still being there. There was! not a particle of vanity in him for all hist success, and he was heartily glad to be quit* of the women who pointed him out in thel street, bought his photograph in thousands, 1 ? and buzzed round him in drawing rooms ; ' of the platform and the lines upon lines' of listeners, not one in ten of whom,* he was convinced, understood his play-; ing or had any reason for applauding be-'i yond that he had short hair and a straight nose and was the fashion. What.did strike! him with ever-rising astonishment was that: he should deliberately have stayed two days in a place where he could neither fish, nor j ride, nor swim, nor play cricket; a place ' where there was absolutely nothing to do A And all the while he might have been at' any one of a dozen places where—oh, bother' that doctor and his advice! I After all, the doctor was not entirely to blame. Jocelyn, thinking lazily between his yawns, decided that Fate must have kept him in Ditchway for some special purpose; that adventures were to hand in that most peaceful of spots ; that he was needed by . someone to do something. Otherwise, whv should his tyre have exploded immediately.: opposite to the entrance of that particular impossible lace instead of any of the others which he had passed? Why should his" clothes have been delayed two days on the journey, so that, bored as he very "soon was/r he had felt, bound to stay there and await'; them ? Jocelyn was a musician, and musi-;' cians are apt to dream. His clothes had 5 arrived, but still he stayed; partly because'; his boredom had reached that sta"c when*even an effort to end it seems impossible,! partly because he was convinced that Fate-i had something in store for him at Ditch--way. He wished to goodness it would turn*; up quickly! & He rolled over in the arm chair and looked! out of the little latticed window. The tiful evening was fading into a beautiful' night. The air was full of the smell of! roses and cows and other sweet things. The? sky was clear and the stars were beginning! to shine; there was a whispering of leaves? and the prattle of a brook close by. It was! all very beautiful. £ Jocelyn jumped up. Yes, confoundedly! beautiful—and in Piccadilly the buses andl cabs were roaring and the lamps blazing,!* and people—people in hundreds, people inf thousands—walking about and talking! and ft That sort of thing would never do. Has took his hat and went out for a walk. & Once more, for the fifth or sixth time since* his arrival in Ditchway, he strolled downf the village and turned along the impossible* lone. Two miles out he met the carrier's* cart, and noticed that, the horse was dead! lame. The carrier had no difficulty in recogJ nising Jocelyn, who had paid him at least! six times his proper charge for bringing hiss luggage. I "Evening, sir," said he. "Was voul thinking of turning back to Ditchwav soonj if I might make so bold?" '|

PUBLISHED BY SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT. ; 1

BY HAROLD CHILD, Author of ' Driven by Fate,' ' Beautiful Rohilla,' ' Caught in the Toils,* Etc., Etc. I

[COPYRIGHT!] # 1

I" Can't say, I'm sure," said Jocelvn.i "Why?" " I " 'Cause I got a package for you, sir; the! only one for Ditchway to-night. It's only a| small one, and I was thinking if you wereS turning back soon you wouldn't mind,B p'raps, carrying it aad saving iny 'orse four| mile. He've gone dead lame, as you see,| sir; and I've got to get him back two mile? to stable as it is." 1 • "A package for me?" said JocelynJ "What is it?" ' I " Can't say, sir; but it looks more like a| small coffin than anything I ever see." g So saying he dived into the darkness of] the cart and proffered Jocelyn his violins Scase. I I " All right," said Jocelyn. " I'll take it."a II The carrier blessed him, turned his horses Hand went slowly out of sight. | $ Jocelyn was little interested. It was cer-| B| tainly curious, he thought, that his mans I should have sent the violin, when he remem-| e bered giving him particular instructions that! I it was not to come. Then, too, there was! £ the doctor's prohibition ; but he anticipated! 5 no temptation to disregard that. His bore-| j dom was now so complete that he doubted! 1 if he could even rouse himself to play; andjjj I what is fiddling to a man who is pining for| I excitement ? If only Fate would hurry up! I with that adventure ! | i Hardly conscious of what he was doing, I had climbed upon a stile. Finding i there, he decided to wander across the fields! j for a litue. He might meet a savage bull orj l ram, or be taken up for a poacher; or a! I mist might rise, and he might lose his Trays * and have to spend the night in a ditch.p I Any one of such things would be a delightful! I change. He strolled on across shorn fieldsj! of grass, and between the bowing multi-fi tudes of golden corn, where the showed black among the stalks, and met| with nothing—not even a cockchafer. | a He was on the point of turning back in* I disgust, when he saw below him a dim yel-l Slow light. It tempted him to go forward,| who lived in so secluded a spot! ||and whether the path would take him pastl rait. As he drew nearer lie saw that thcl lipath led right under the high garden wall J Sand joined another lane, if possible morel .pingged than the last, at the comer. The! J|front of the house must face the lane. I !M There was no light in any of the win-| ;||dows except that at the top. For some! reason Jocelyn found himself! rapidly alert, expectant, excited.! ;||There was nothing in the look of the house! Jito rouse such feelings in him. It was anl secluded little place. He could seel iS tnat it was covered with creepers, and that! ||the wall onc'osed a long garden, which wasS incompletely hidden from him by a row ofl .Jjhigh trees, though the :<.ent of the flowers! Ijwas heavy in the air; hut while he stood! ion the brow of the hill n;-d looked down onf ||the place at his feet hr found a conviction! in his mind that here at last hj Khad come npon the secret which Ditchwayl tejfeftd in store for him, that in this thatched! "Sand creeper-covered cottage lay the occa-| sion for that work—whatever it was—fori the doing of which Fate had brought andl kept him there. | Well and good! But there seemed to bei no instant need of him, at any rate. Hef sat' on the stile, laid his violin case eare-f jjj| fully on the ground, and began to smoke.l Ipothlrig happened. The house was still and| {asi'.ent; the light burned in the upper win-| ||dow, and the peaceful stars looked down! flon an obstinately peaceful world. A little! ||brceze played among the trees in the gar-i |sden and wafted the scent of lavender andl to his nostrils—but nothing! g m Jocelyn began to yawn and to stretch.! ||His arras were strained above his head andl ||hiß mouth open, when suddenly he sprang! ||ofl the stile and stood exactly as he was J ||nrms up and mouth wide, for twenty! $ That voice! Great Powers! If Jocelvnl 3 was surprised to find himself in Ditchwayl She was far more surprised to hear such'af invoice as that. I .3 on earth could the woman be? Atl 'I first he imagined that she must be some! great singer who had come, like himself,! |j;to rest in seclusion; but he knew every! § prima donna in Europe, and that voice be-l I longed to none of thqm. They would grovelg on the floor, he told himself in that moment! |of excitement, before so transcendentallyj "g stupendously, incomprehensibly beautiful? f ; s a voice as that which was turning the whole! } earth to music. p %j He did not stop to think. He picked! . up his violin case, ran helter-skelter down! ; the slope and leaped the stile into the lanej . The front of the house was dark and silent! 5 • It might have been uniuhabitcd. The lightf •, in that upper window was the only sign! ;: of life; and Jocelyn went back over thel stile and stopped benttrth it. 1 . which the! ..-^ music came; but though the window was! |open the blind was down, and he could! |seo not so much as a shadow on it. Hef gleaned against the garden wall and shivered! I with joy as he drank in the gorgeous sounds! ( J|with greedy ears. | i| Who on earth could she be? One woman! |and one only, had he known with a voice! ijwhich time might have developed into this! tand that was years ago while hi was al _pupil it the Academy. He remembered thef Si girl—what was her name? Chevne, was iff fflSo, Chesney-Margaret Chcsney ; that was! ait She had black hair and a pale face;! jjshe was pretty., he fancied, and clever; he! £|had spoken to her once or twice, and *hef possessed a magnificent voire But ¥ ,|if he remembered rightly, thatcirl's voicef been hard-hard as nails.lrith not at Ijfespark of feeling in it. He recollected comingf Mtnto the room on one occasion at the endl Hof her lesson and seeing old Schmutzel, the? psinging master, hammering with clenched! ||fists on the piano and shrieking : " Pots-P tausend ! Donncnretter!" (and the rest ofl it). " You vill preak my 'eart! You 'avel de voize of Gott's Anchel and de zoul ofl a 'erring. You vill never zing, Mizz JcsneyJ undil your 'eart 'as been torn and rcndedl and battered and broken; and if Gott is! goot to you 'E vill 'urt you vary mosk and! vary often!" ] That was Margaret Chesney's voice, vhib] this—all the love and sorrow, and the splen-l dor and the agony of all the world was in I every note. Who on earth could she be? ' Her song was an old and well-known one] —the Braga Serenata. No sooner had shel reached the end than to Jocelyn's intense! surprise- she started it again with no per-| septible pause. He held his breath to listen.| The woman could'not be Margaret Ghes-I ncy; but if she were he had heard her sing!

Hthis before—had actually played the violin' Hobligato for her at some small" concert in Hthe days of his obscurity, and had been ||vexed at the cold correctness of her singling. Now—good Heavens! H It was nothing without "'the fiddle! Be||forc Jocelyn knew what he was about he' Ipiul torn open the case, passed his thumb' ||over the strings, discovered that his violin' Igwas in tune and the piano to concert pitch,! Hand plunged boldly into the music. j H There was a little scream and S discordant' ||clash of keys. If Jocelyn had been in the; |<mood to reflect he would have realised that: ||the woman had good cause to be frightened' Pwhcn a violin, played by' a, master hand,! up immediately under her window] ||at ten o'clock at night a hundred miles from' Ijjnnywhcre. Jocelyn, however, was not in* Ijtho mood to reflect. Every atom of all the' Hjforec and determination of his being was' I fixed on this: that the woman should sing' that song, and that he should play the ob-| ligato. He had his way. It may have been that] the singer had recognised the skill of his! playing, and, being music-mad like himself,! had been unable to resist the pleasure of' singing to such an accompaniment; it may! havo been that Jocelyn's mind' in come' strange way over-ruled her own. Whatever! was the cause, she played the opening bars! and began the song again. I Had it been in a concert room, what J din would have greeted the close! What! clapping of hands and stamping of feetl! What cries of "Encore! Bravo!" There! was no one present to mar a perfect sound' with hideous noise. Only Night, the Mother ||of Music, was there to hear; and she! gbreathed the sweet notes into her bosomj f|and let them linger there till they faded, Minto a sighing, pulsing silence. P Jocelyn took off his hat and mopped his' Bsbrow. I H "My aunt!" said he, "but that was! Wjjolly good!" I CHAPTER H. || CONCEHNS AN EVIL SITE-IT. II When he looked up again the light in the gjupper window had gone out. M "Oh, come!" said Jocelyn to himself. ||"That won't do. I've had a little taste pof excitement, and it would be too bad if! git was to here. HI p l ay her a tunej j||and see if that will draw, her." j| He tucked his violin under his chin andl sbegan to play. What his agents would have! if they could have heard him is easier &to imagine than to describe ; for he was play|jmg as finely as ever he had played in his Sllife, and with no audience but tho" night and feone hidden woman ; sheer waste of a tune igjwhicb. might have gone to swell the agents' P'oanking account! H Jocelyn himself was confident that his i music must draw an acknowledgment from lus hearer. There was none. At the end of his display the window was still black and the blind motionless. "If that, won't fetch her," he said, "nothing will!'' He put his violin back in tho case and trudged home to bed, feeling that he had been very ill-used. That night he dreamed a dream—that is to say, he decided in the morning that it must |ghavo been a dream, though at the time he gKbelieved himself to be awake. He saw in ||the far corner of his room a tall figure clad Min a pale grey, the figure of a woman. He ylooked for her face, he could not see it. yThero was nothing but a dim grey mist, with §|thfl faintest suggestion of features flickering feamidst it, much as the flames of a newlypkindled couch fire flicker in the thick smoke. |»How long the figure wavered in the corner phe could not tell. He spoke to it at last, tasking- what it wanted, and instantly it pfaded away. H It might have been that the thoughts of Margaret Chesnev had merely returned to him in his dream, as such thoughts will, for no particular reason ; but while the greyclad figure stayed with him ho felt very'certain that she it was. Whv, he could not tell. •' Miss Titmuss." said he, while the worthy spinster was laying his breakfast on the following morning, " who lives in a houso by the side of a lane—across the fields about two 1 miles away?" ( Miss Titmuss dropped a plate on the floor, went very white, and cried : "La! You've been there?" [ "Last night," said Jocelyn. "I heard someone singing; the finest voice in the world! I wish you'd tell me all you knowj about the place and the people." j Miss Titmuss was clinging to a chair. " You've heard it sing':" she gasped. f "It?" said Jocelyn. , " Fvo heard Her! siug. and I've played my fiddle to her sin J ing." b j P Miss Titmuss threw up her hands. t H " Oh, my dear young man ! Oh dear, oh ||dear, whatever will happen to you now?" [ || "What on earth d'you mean?" cried H Jocelyn, now thoroughly excited. i P Miss Titmuss dropped her voice to a hol-l ffllow whisper. | H " Only once before," she said, " has living Kman heard It sing. That was Thomas ||Griines, my own cousin's sou, and he was! fisdead within a month." [ P Jocelyn gave a shout of laughter, and then] ||suddenly composed his features. f H " l am vei 7 sorry," he said, " but tell m J ||all about it." i H " Not for the world, sir," said Miss Titi pmus?, " if you'll kindly excuse me." j M " Why not?" said Jocelyn. ' { If "Because it's—it's not safe to mention ||it, sir." j H "But I insist!" said Jocelyn. "If any | phann is going to happen to me because I've ©heard the singing, it would surely be only Iffair to warn ine from what quarter it wii'' ||come. Now, Miss Titmuss, I feel sure youl pcan't run any risk by just telling me what* gathere is to tell." { P Miss Titmuss began to cry. m "Dear! oh, dear!" said she.. "To think! II that a handsome, pleasant-spoken young pgentleman like you should have fallen into fct's hands! That comes of going out at gnight. I knew it. I said so to Amelia, jShYel!, if you know, sir, I think I'll ask' LgAmelia to come up ar>d help me to tell it I pSl'm afraid to do it by myself." j J Miss Amelia was called,, and when she! pSheard the business for which she was wanted! too, went very white, and began to jj|bewail Jocelyn's misfortune. The two ladies' pbetween them almost succeeded in alarming] iJhim. Standing side by side, the one the! |*vfiry image of the other in face and dress and' sgmanner, they showed themselves so very insure of the reasonableness of their fears that* If Jocelyn began to feel uncomfortable, How-j Igever, like many superstitious people, he had. si|no faith in the superstitions of others, and] kt the littlo habit which the Misses Titmuss] had contracted of sharing every sentence between them made him soon inclined to laugh. "There can't be much ill-luck about a woman who can sing like that," ho said. " Woman !" cried Miss Titmuss. " If 7(m Sithink it's a woman——" jja " You're very much mistaken," said Miss ||Amelia. M " Well, then, who or what is it that sings |sthere?" said Jocelyn. H " Well, sir," said Miss Titmuss, " you'll exESciisa our naminc it. but thera's no doubt "'

itS "That," said Miss Amelia-, "It's some! »®kind of a -" § >|| Sho stopped. Both ladies looked at each ■Mother, then at Jocelyn, then at the ground. H " Shall we, Amelia?7Ea|d i Miss Titmuss. • jg, '■ " We must!" sighed Miss Amelia; wherc- : it upon each drew a deep breath.. >Jj|. " There's no doubt," said Miss Titrairas, \M "That It's gome kind of," < said Miss ,f|Arnel:a, |H " D," said Miss Titmuss; <m' " ; " sai( * ss Amelia» : <1 " sa ' < * BS > tffl " I," said Miss Amelia; I l H " Tj '"* ai{ * bs T ' tmuss - I ,|i Jocelyn's face was as grave as a judge's. [ r P "Indeed?" he said. "What makes you that?" | M "Well, sir," said Miss Titmuss, "youf jl'must know that in that house there once! 3 f lived" I M " An olcl lad y~ a Mis s Gordon, She lived! a - one > an d never went outside the gar-f Kden." | tlf " a was a Diiser, sir; and one night,! s lfabout five years ago," jj 'H " e TraS ' n her bed. Her! tffi cat was cnt w ' tn a knife," f M "And nobody was ever found that had* it." I r fs "Ah!" said Jocelyn. "I seem to re| the case. So that was tho house if ||But what has that to do with the singing?" | Jl " WllJr ' s ' r ' T^ab w!lic k we spoke of nrustj Shave done the murder," j ill " "^ '" t^lc * l<ruse OTer since." i J2 " * see '" sa J o * gravely. \M " * fc must k° s< >- sir>" w-d Miss Titmuss, fife" because nobedv " 1 eTer Men '*■'" 3 j|j " n( * because, sir, Thomas Grimes is thef lit on]v man who ever heard! It sing," | ja& " And he died in a month of it, leaving a| Iplwidow and three " ; f *m ' '^ n( * no one D'tchway has ever" | M " Been near the place since after dark." | S |i ** was a ' en S*ky proceeding, the telling of| rathat story, but by dint of patient question-! Jocelyn at last learned enough to cnn-J pclude for himself that the. mysterious Mmust have come to the houre about three! plyears t>efore. No one had seen anyone! The smoke coming from the ehim-t Jgneys had been the only sign that it was in-| Inhabited. Doubtless the occupant- had come! there by magic; but. demon or not, it ap-s peared to require certain creature comfortsj for there came every now and then into Had-| stone, the market town three miles away, a| tall, sour-looking woman of middle age, who! never spoke a word, but did all her shopping! by signs. People had been curious at first,! but the most patient watcher had nevcrf seen anyone about the house, and the garden* was hidden by the trees. Then came the! amazing story of Thomas Grimes, and after! that tho place had been shunned in terror.! The postman said that no letters ever camel for that house, and the .coal-heaver declared! that on the rare occasions when he was! called upon to take a load there he had! seen nothing, for the coal shed stood just in-| side a little gate in the wall, and a thicks ||hedge shut out all the view. I m There was mystery enough about the in-| 1 of the house to raise the wildest! gimaginings in the simple mindsof the people! s l|of Ditchway. The legend had grown daily! e|for years, and now not only the Misses Tit-f " ||muss, but every soul in the place, were con-| Evinced that they had in unpleasant proxi-| fflmity to them an evil spirit, possibly the* 'llghost of the murdered woman, possibly thej ' pThing that had murdered her. No other | r llhypothesis could explain the facts, and 'lJThomas Grimes's account of the singing, no doubt by the delirium of the fever i J,awhich killed him, had proved to all that it* Ijcould have been the work of no earthly vocal i ' |?chords. j |j Therefore the subject was never men-* j Ktioned in Ditchway, or even in Hadstone, | j gexcept under compulsion. Therefore the I r ©Misses Titmuss wept.and,trembled for JoceJ glyn when they heard that not only had hel _ glistened to Its voice, but had actually been! t into lending his help in the un-f ||holy rite. | rM Needless to say, Jocelyn was all agog.l .|iNo sooner had he finished a hearty break-f r|gfast than he took his hat and went straighti )|sto the stile from which he could catch as of Its abode. In the daylight the! Chouse looked as pretty and harmless a. place! p|as one could imagine. True, it was sadly| ||shut in among the trees and the tall ever-l llfs reens - and ve ry low. It must be dampj ! Hi a ' it:t * e cueer l ess ; but in that open up-l -Kiper window was fluttering a pretty muslinl Jlhalf-curtain, Jocelyn caught sight of a| old : fashioned wall paper, and froml Hjthe ground floor came the extremely com-! ■p|monplace sound of the clattering of a nail, p ■m Human beiDgs lived there; and one of| was a woman with a divine voice andp p*a genius for singing; a woman, evidently! who had some reason, good or bad,| ||for hiding from the world; at any rate a| ifbjwornan who (Jocelyn was convinced of it)| destined to influence his life, and wasf [||the reason why Fate had burst his tyre, deJj flayed his luggage, and kept him in Ditch-1 R ■M That night he was there again, and withl ;||his violin. He played a tune, another, and! ||a third. There was not even a light in the| [i&window. k |sj Ho went home and to bed. Again he was* Ijvisited by the grey figure, but this time the| were clearer. He saw a crown of£ •||black hair and a pale oval face; a pair off p|eyeK seemed to burn their way through the| ||grey mist, and a pair of lips, beautiful but| drawn with pain, were now clear-jj ||arsd now hidden. Again he spoke; againjS •Pit disappeared instantly; but this time hel >|||was more certain than before that it >ras| Chesney herself. I 'II The nest night he "played again under the! i||window, with no better fortune. The! 'iSMisses Titmuss began openly to wail overf ||him; to implore. him not to run into suchj pdanger. The villagers stared at him, asl ;Sahe walked down the street, in mingled fearl ;l|and admiration. | >|| That night the vision came again; and! ;||this time the face was clearly visible. He| gfrecognised it at once. | : fjj& Margaret Chesney in very truth, but Elori-| jlfied with a new loveliness, which seemed gjsome reason to be the direct outcome of suf-f >||fering. The girl had been pretty; the| IKjwomao was supremely beautiful. All the! >jra[sorrow of the world had been in her voice; | iWuM the sorrow of the world was in her eyes! [jMand mouth. | ■M He called her by name, " Margaret!" and| law, as plainly a« he had ever seen anv-s :hing, that she raised her hand from under! ier grey robe and beckoned to him. p " Jocelyn sprang up to follow her, and| vas amazed to find it broad daylight. Hefe tad really been asleep then; but he had seenl I Margaret Chesney. Thero was no doubting! t. He was more firmly convinced than everjS ;hat Margaret Chesney was the woman who! vas hidden in the house, that she needed! lelp, and that fate had brought him to| 3itchwny for the sole purpose of making usof if him for her sake. ° fjj There was one question which he felfl )ound to ask himself very seriously. In thes ild days at the Academy, had he been in lovei vith her? He couid answer conscientious]vs sfot in the least. He had rarely spoken tol ier, and had only remarked her as onel iretty girl out of a score and more, at a time!

I when he was far too much in love with his work to havi room in his heart for any woman. No; there were higher powers at work here than human love. If only Fate were not such an unconscionably long time in showing him what he had to do! On the fourth night he played with the desperation of a man who is making his final effort, for, indeed, he had made up his mind |that if the mystery did not solve itself soon She would leave the place and let the hiddenj gßwoman manage her own affairs. ' E H His immense success as a violinist was not! due to his handsome face and close-l scropped hair: he was a genius of a rare! gorder. Music in his hands was a mighty! |power, only half tamed perhaps, but capableJ Mof exerting a strange influence over certain! Mof his hearers. M He was playing now with one definite obpject in his mind. Every finger moved, every ||string sang with one purpose: to draw forth ||some sign, some acknowledgment from the gtroysterious hidden woman. H What ho expected and hoped was that IZthe upper window should be thrown open, ||and Margaret Chesney herself appear. He glkept his eyes fixed on the inexorably black Sand silent pane. It should light up. it ||shonld open, or he would play all night! JH The acknowledgment came at 'ast, in|sfi6ed, bat not in the way he had espered. ||The violin shrieked and" the bow dropped Ifrora his fingers as he felt a heavy hand fall Mipon his shoulder. if (To be continued.)