People called the dean proud and worldly wise, but this was not true of

him. He may have believed that all the people of Palestine belonged to

county families, and were therefore called the chosen people, but he never

said so. A certain gentle humility of demeanour always distinguished him,

no matter to whom he spoke; and he was without doubt a thoroughly good

nineteenth century churchman, living at his own level, of course, and true

to his caste, toward the weaknesses of which he exercised much charity and

forbearance, while he expressed his condemnation of its sins by rigorously

excluding from his family circle any member of it who had been openly

convicted of disgraceful conduct, just as he excluded professional men and

other common citizens when they held no official position which he was

obliged to recognize, and were not connected with the landed gentry. But

these were the characteristics of his position, for as a dean he was

required to be the slave of precedent; as a man, however, he was known to

be just and generous, and an excellent good friend to all who had any

claim upon him, from the bishop who governed him down to the humblest

chorister in the cathedral which he governed.

It was in the early spring when the dean first noticed what he took to be

a change for the better in the Tenor's attitude toward life at large. The

dean was susceptible himself to kindly changes in the season; so much so,

indeed, that, contrary to all precedent, he allowed himself to be tempted

out after dark one night into the Close by the balmy mildness of the

weather: His mind had been running all day upon the Tenor, and, noticing

as he passed his little house that the blind was up, and the sitting room

window wide open, showing the lamplit interior, and the object of his

thoughts pacing restlessly to and fro, he determined to go in and have a

chat. The Tenor received him cordially, but his manner was somewhat

absent, and for a wonder the conversation flagged.

"Are you well?" the dean asked at last. "You look somewhat fatigued, I

think, and pale."

"Yes, I am well, thank you," the Tenor answered, brushing his hand back

over his forehead and hair, a gesture which was habitual. "But I fancy,"

he added smiling, "that I am beginning to be a little"--he did not know

what.

"Ah!" said the dean, looking at him with the grave, critical air of an

anxious physician, and ruminating before he pronounced his diagnosis, "You

have shown most extraordinary perseverance in the course of life you

marked out for yourself," he finally observed; "and I trust your

resolution is well recompensed by having obtained for you that peace of

mind which you sought. But there is one thing I should like to be

permitted to point out to you. I do not venture to advise, because, in the

first place, it is always a difficult matter to decide on What would be

best for another man's welfare; and, in the second"--the dean always spoke

with great deliberation--"a man who has proved himself so capable of

acting with prudence and determination, so competent to judge, and so firm

in carrying out his convictions as you have been, might well consider

advice from anyone presumptuous. And, therefore, I am merely going to

observe that, lately, it has seemed to me to be a pity that your life

should continue much longer to be a life of inaction. I hope, and indeed I

think, that the years you have spent so well in this quiet way have been

even more beneficial than you yourself imagine; that they have not only

reconciled you to life, but have given you back the confidence and energy

which should belong to your character and abilities, and the ambition to

succeed in the world which should belong to your age. For some time past

it has seemed to me that you are more restless than you used to be; and I

have fancied, indeed I may say I have hoped, that you are at last

beginning to long for change."

The Tenor sat silent and thoughtful for a while.

"No," he began at last, "I do not even yet long for change, as you would

understand the longing. I have begun to feel a want, though I scarcely

know of what--of companionship, perhaps, of some new interest; but I have

no inclination for any change that would take me away from here. After the

storm I passed through, this place has been for me a perfect haven of rest;

and now that my peace of mind has returned to me, do you think it would

be wise, by any voluntary act, to alter the present course of my life,

seeing that it is so well with me as it is? When a man is content it does

not seem to me that any change can be for the better; and, trifles apart,

I really am content."

"God grant it may last," the dean responded earnestly. "Only I would warn

you to be ready for change in case it comes to you in spite of yourself. I

would warn you not to feel too secure. For I have noticed this, that, for

some mysterious reason which no mortal can fathom, it appears to be the

will of Heaven that when a man is able to say sincerely, 'I am happy';

when he is most confident, believing his happiness to be as firmly placed

as earthly happiness can be, then is the time for him to be most watchful,

for then is change most likely to be at hand. Indeed, it has seemed to me

that this feeling of security, or rather of content with things as they

are, is in itself an indication of coming change."

As he finished speaking the cathedral clock above them began to strike the

hour. Slowly the mellow notes followed each other, filling the night with

sound, and dying away in a long reverberation when the twelfth had struck.

Then came silence, then the chime, voicelike, clear, and resonant:

[Illustration: (musical notation); lyrics: He, watch-ing o-ver Is--ra--el,

slumbers not, nor sleeps.]

After which all was so still that the Tenor, looking up through the open

window at the moonlit cathedral, towering above him, gray, shadowy, and

mysterious, felt as if the world itself had stopped, and all the life in

it had been resolved into a moment of intense self-consciousness, of

illimitable passionate yearning for something not to be expressed.

The next day was Saturday, and in the afternoon the Tenor had to sing.

CHAPTER III.

There is human nature, both literally and figuratively speaking, in

Wagner's method of setting a character to a tune of its own; for, although

our lives can hardly be said to order themselves to one consistent

measure, our days often do.

For months now, "When the orb of day departs," Schubert's song, had

accompanied the Tenor. It had soothed him, it had irritated him; it had

expressed passionate longing, it had been the utterance of despairing

apathy; it had marked the vainest regret, and it had Suggested hope; it

had wearied him, it had comforted him; but it had never left him. That

Saturday morning, however, when he awoke, his mind was set to another

measure. Schubert's song had gone as it had come, without conscious effort

on his part; but it had left a substitute, for the Tenor, as he lingered

over his morning's work, found himself continually murmuring whole phrases

of a chant which he had heard once upon a time when he was staying in an

old town in France, It was the Litany of the Blessed Virgin sung at

Benediction by some unseen singer with a wonderfully sympathetic

mezzo-soprano voice. The Tenor had gone again and again to hear her in

this chant, the music of which suited her as well as it did the theme. The

words of adoration, "Sancta Maria, Sancta Dei Genetrix, Sancta Virgo

virginum," were uttered evenly on notes that admitted of the tenderest

expression, while the supplication, the "Ora pro nobis," rose to the full

compass of the singer's voice, and was delivered in tones of passionate

entreaty. At the end, in the "Agnus Dei," the music changed, dropping into

the minor with impressive effect, the effect of earnestness wearied by

effort but still unshaken; and it was this final appeal in all its

pathetic beauty that now recurred to the Tenor. He had not thought of the

chant for years, nor had there been anything apparently to recall it now;

but all that day it possessed him, and at intervals he caught himself

involuntarily singing it aloud:

"Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi, parce nobis Domine,

Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mimdi, exaudi nos Domine,

Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi, miserere nobis."

He sang it while he was dressing; he whistled it with his hands in his

pockets while he walked up and down the room waiting for his breakfast;

and at breakfast, with the newspaper before him, he hummed it to himself

steadily. He began it again as he crossed the road to enter the cathedral

for the early morning service; he continued it while he was putting on his

surplice; he marched to it in the procession, and he rapped it out on his

music book when he had taken his seat in the choir. He opened the book to

study his solo for the afternoon service, but before he was halfway

through his mind was busily rendering, not the music before him, but

"Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi, parce nobis Domine."

The haunting strain had become an intolerable nuisance by this time, and

he made a vigorous effort to get rid of it by giving his mind to what was

going on around him, and interesting himself in the people as they entered

and took their places in stall and choir, and canon's pew, chancel and

transept. Being Saturday, there was a good attendance even at this early

service. Strangers from a distance came in to see the cathedral, and

people in the place came in to see the strangers; so that there was plenty

to observe, especially for one who (unlike the Tenor) was a little behind

the scenes or had peeped beneath the surface and beheld the various

incidents of the life-dramas which were constantly being enacted in the

sacred edifice itself from service to service in the midst and with the

help of psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, prayers and sermons, under

the dean's very nose, and often in the presence of the bishop. The world

at worship is a worldly sight, and there was a certain appropriateness in

the Tenor's _miserere_; but he failed to apply it although it kept

him company to the end, and was still faithful when he sallied forth from

the gloom of the cathedral and went on his way with the rest in the

sunshine and freshness of a glad new day.

As the time for the afternoon service approached, the people began again

to flock to the cathedral, but in crowds now, for it had been rumoured

that the Tenor was to sing.

The choir, from their lateral position on either side of the aisle, were

able to look up and down the church, having on the one hand and opposite

the distinguished visitors who were accommodated with seats in the stalls,

the canon's and dean's pews; and on the other the officiating clergy and

the congregation generally. It was an advantageous position for those who

came to observe, but the Tenor had not hitherto been one of these. The

music, when it was interesting, absorbed him; and when it was dull the

monotony soothed him, so that he noticed nothing. It had done so this

afternoon. During all the first part of the service he neither saw nor

heard, but did his work mechanically like one in a dream; and in every

pause of it the old chant recurred to him, filling his heart with a

separate undercurrent of solemn supplication, now in French: "Agneau de

Dieu, qui effacez les péchés du monde, ayez pitié de nous," and now in

Latin: "Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi, miserere nobis."

The dean preached a _sermonette_ on Saturday afternoon, which he took

the precaution to deliver before the anthem, so that the people might

still have something to look forward to and keep their seats. The

_sermonette_ over, the organ played the opening bars of the Tenor's

solo, and the choir stood up.

While he waited for the note, the Tenor absently fixed his eyes on a lady

in the canon's pew. The spell of the old chant was still upon him, and

instead of preparing his mind for his task, he let it murmur on: "Agnus

Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi, parce nobis Domine"--while a rapt silence

fell upon the congregation--not a ribbon rustled; the expression of

expectation was most intense. One would scarcely have expected the Tenor

to take up the note at the right moment, his mind being preoccupied by

another strain, but he did. The lady in the canon's pew held the music of

the anthem before her, and had been following that; but when the first

clear notes of the Tenor's voice rang through the building she looked up

as if in surprise, their eyes met, and with a shock the Tenor awoke from

his lethargy, faltered for a moment, and then stopped. The organ played

on, however, and he quickly recovered; but the pause had been quite

perceptible and the people were amazed. It was the first time that such a

thing had happened with their Tenor, which made it a matter of moment; and

the wonder of it grew, parties being formed, the one to excuse the slip

and call it nothing, the other to blame him for his carelessness, as

people who never disappoint us are blamed, with bitterness, if for once by

chance they err.

That night the Tenor's restlessness grew to a head. He was engaged upon a

piece of work he wished to finish, but he could not settle to it; and

after making an ineffectual effort to concentrate his attention upon it,

he took up his hat and strolled out.

It was a lovely moonlight night. The line of trees in the Close were in

flower, and their sweetness was overpowering. He did not stay there,

however, but wandered out into the city, with his hat pushed back from his

forehead, and his hands in his pockets. The gas was not lighted in the

streets as the moon was near the full; and beneath her rays, all common

objects, however obtrusively vulgar by daylight, were refined into beauty

for the moment.

"Pater de coelis Deus, miserere nobis;

Fili Redemptor mundi Deus, miserere nobis,

Spiritus sancte Deus, miserere nobis;

Sancte Trinitas unus Deus, miserere nobis"--

the Tenor sang softly to himself as he slowly pursued his way.

He had some sort of a vague idea that he would like to go and look at the

quaint old market-place by moonlight; and when he reached it, he stopped

at the corner, interrupting his song to gaze in artistic appreciation at

the silent scene before him, at the heavy masses of shade interspersed

with intervals of mellow moonlight, and the angles of roof and spire and

ornament cut clean as cameos against "the dark and radiant clarity of the

beautiful night sky."

The market-place was an irregular square, picturesquely enclosed by tall

houses of different heights and most original construction, among them the

east end of a church and part of a public building of ancient date were

crowded in; without incongruous effect, however, the moonlight, crisp,

cool, and clear, having melted hue and form of all alike into one

harmonious whole, to the charm of which even the covered stalls, used in

the day's dealings and now packed in the middle of the square, and the

deserted footways added something.

A tall, slender lad of sixteen or seventeen was standing on the edge of

the pathway, just in front of the Tenor. He was the only other person

about, and on that account the Tenor had looked at him a second time. As

he did so, a young woman came suddenly round the corner, and accosted the

boy.

"Qu'il est beau!" she exclaimed, laying her hand on his arm, and smiling

up into his face admiringly.

The Boy stepped back to avoid her, with an unmistakable gesture of

disgust, and in doing so, he accidentally stumbled up against the Tenor.

He turned round, and apologised confusedly.

The Tenor raised his hat, and answered courteously. They were standing

together side by side now, and remained so for some seconds, silently

surveying the scene; and then the Tenor all unconsciously began again to

sing:

"Sancta Maria," he entreated, "Sancta Dei Genetrix, Sancta Virgo virginum,

ora pro nobis."

The girl had been wandering off again, but at the first note of the

supplication she stopped. A chord of memory stirred. She knew the words,

she knew the tune. She had sung them both herself often and often at home

in France. She was a Child of Mary then--and now?

As the Tenor finished the last note of the phrase and paused, she clasped

her hands convulsively, and gasped: "O mon Dieu! mon Dieu! ayez pitié de

moi!"

Her half-inarticulate cry did not reach the Tenor and the Boy, neither had

they observed her distress, for just at that moment, the city clock struck

one, and both had raised their heads involuntarily In expectation of the

chime. And presently out upon the night it rolled, a great wave of sound,

swelling and spreading, muffled by distance somewhat, but still distinctly

sweet and insistent:

[Illustration: (musical notation); lyrics: He, watch-ing o-ver Is--ra--el,

slumbers not, nor sleeps.]

"Do you believe it?" said the Boy, glancing toward the girl, and repeating

the gesture of disgust with which he had shrunk from her when she accosted

him.

The Tenor lifted his hat, and brushed his hand back over his hair. "Do I

believe it in spite of _that?_ you would say," he answered,

considering the girl with quiet eyes, "Yes, I believe it," he declared,

"in spite of _that_, which has puzzled older heads than yours."

With which he turned to retrace his steps, taking up the Litany of the

Blessed Virgin once more as he went, the supplication: "Agnus Dei, qui

tollis peccata mundi, miserere nobis," being audible long after he was out

of sight.

The Boy remained as he had left him for some time, apparently lost in

thought; and the girl still stood a little way off in a dejected attitude,

her hands clasped before her, her eyes fixed on the ground. She looked ill

and spiritless. The Boy, glancing at her carelessly, wondered at the

intent expression of her face; he did not perceive that she was praying,

but she was,

The midnight stillness deepened about those two; there was not another

living creature to be seen. The irregular old buildings on every side

looked ruinous in the shadowy moonlight, and the whole market-place

presented to the Boy a picture of desolation which chilled him. He was

about to turn away with a last cursory glance at the other solitary

figure, when something suddenly occurred which arrested his attention. It

seemed to startle him too, for he sprang back, with prompt agility, into a

dark doorway behind him, from whence he watched what followed with the

keenest interest, being careful, however, to conceal himself the while. He

had not felt any movement of pity or kindly compassion for the girl;

perfect indifference had succeeded the first sensation of repugnance; he

would have left her there to any fate that might await her, and would have

expected all right-minded people to do the same. It was therefore with

unmitigated astonishment that he beheld the scene which was now being

enacted before him. They were no longer alone. A tall and graceful lady of

most dignified bearing, with a countenance of peculiar serenity and

sweetness, had approached from the opposite direction, and was standing

beside the girl, speaking to her evidently, but the Boy was too far off to

hear what was said. He could see, however, that the girl's whole attitude

had changed. She was no longer dejected, but eager: and she gazed in the

lady's face as she listened to her words with an expression of admiration

and wonder, one had almost said of adoration, upon her own, as though it

were a heavenly visitant who had hailed her. The lady, as she spoke,

pointed to a street opposite, and the girl cast a quick glance in that

direction; she seemed to be measuring a distance she was impatient to

traverse, and moved a step forward at the same time, uttering some short

sentence with rapid gesticulation. The pantomime was perfectly

intelligible to the Boy, who understood that she was feverishly anxious to

carry out some intention on the instant. The lady seemed to hesitate,

then, laying her beautiful white ungloved hand on the girl's shoulder, and

looking into her face, she spoke again earnestly. The girl answered with

passionate protestations, and then the lady smiled, satisfied apparently,

and led the way in the direction to which she had pointed, the girl

following in haste. Her hat had fallen back, her hair was loosened, her

countenance beamed with enthusiasm, as the Boy observed. He was stealing

softly after them, skipping from shadow to shadow, in great enjoyment of

the whole adventure.

The lady took the girl to a long low rambling house beside a church, at

the door of which she knocked. It was opened immediately by a singularly

venerable looking old man, evidently a priest, with a fine though rugged

face, instinct with zeal and benevolence. He had his hat in his hand, and

was just coming out; but when he saw who had knocked, he stopped short,

and bowed deferentially. The girl sank down upon the doorstep as if

exhausted.

"I have brought Marie Cruchot home, father," the lady said.

"Ah, my daughter, is that you? We have been expecting you for many days,"

the old man exclaimed in French, taking the girl's hand and raising her

gently as he spoke. "I have prayed for you day and night without ceasing,

and only just now, as I passed the convent, I went to ask the night

portress for tidings of our wandering sheep, and specially mentioned you.

But enter. The good sisters are waiting for you, and will welcome you with

joy."

One of two sisters of charity, who were standing behind the priest, now

came forward and kissed the girl. The old man raised his hat, and, looking

up into the clear depths of the quiet sky, murmured a blessing, and went

his way. And then the door was closed.

"Humph!" said the Boy, who was lurking up an entry opposite. "So that is

what they do at night, is it? and that is the young person who sold her

sister Louise to Mosley Menteith. Now I am beginning to know the world;

and what an extraordinary old world it is, to be sure! One half seems to

be always kept busy mending the mischief the other half has made."

He peeped cautiously out of the entry, looking for the lady, but she had

disappeared, and night and silence reigned supreme.

CHAPTER IV.

All that the Tenor had witnessed of the scene in the market-place made

little or no impression on him, and he would probably never have thought

of it again had he not encountered the Boy a few nights later, standing,

idly observant as before, at the same time and almost in the same place.

The Tenor's first impulse was to pass on without speaking, but the Boy

looked at him, and there was something in the look, half shy, half

appealing, which caused him to stop, and having stopped, he was obliged to

speak.

To his first commonplace remark the Boy answered nervously, and with quick

glances instantly averted, as if he were afraid to meet the Tenor's eyes.

The latter continued to talk, however, and after a little the Boy's

timidity wore off, and his manner became assured.

"This is a curious old place, is it not?" he remarked; "and curiously

named if you consider how very little _quest_ there is for

_morning_ here, for the new day which would bring the light of truth

after the darkness of error."

"It never struck me that the name could have any allegorical

significance," the Tenor answered prosaically. "I believe it used to be

Morn and Quest. It stands at the junction of the two rivers, you know, or

rather just below it. They run their united race from hence to the sea."

"I know," said the Boy. "But it really is a romantic old place, especially

by moonlight; and it teems with historical associations, as the guidebook

has it, with its cathedral, cloisters, castle, and close--the closest in

England, they say. Don't you feel remote from the world when you get in

there, and the four old gates are shut upon you? The water-gate is the

most interesting to me."

"Two of the others are architecturally beautiful where they haven't been

spoilt by restoration," the Tenor rejoined.

"Ah!" the Boy ejaculated, and then continued boyishly: "You're not a

native evidently, or you wouldn't speak so moderately. The inhabitants

boast themselves black in the face about everything in the city. They made

me believe that the whole earth began here originally, and that it was

also the point of departure for the sea. It did wash their walls on the

southern side once upon a time; but the sinfulness of the people compelled

it to retire ages ago, and it has since enjoyed a purer moral atmosphere

twenty miles away."

"Indeed," said the Tenor. "I did not know that the sea was so fastidious!"

"Oh, yes, it is, naturally," the Boy declared; "but it cannot choose its

position for itself always any more than we can. But people are more

entertaining than places," he pursued; "don't you think so? Now these

people, how Godfearing and orthodox they are, and how admirably they make

religion part of their daily life in the matter of stretching a point and

using the right of Christian charity to be lenient when a too rigorous

adhesion to principle would injure their interest. Their chief

confectioner retired from business the other day, but they would not give

their custom to his successor at first because of his religious opinions.

They forsook him for his atheism, in fact; but in a very short time they

returned to him for his ice-creams, which are excellent. If you ever feel

any doubt about life being worth living, go and get one. It will reassure

you."

They had been strolling on as they talked, and now the Tenor turned to

look at his companion, being about to answer him, when something in the

Boy's face struck him as familiar, and he paused, knitting his brows in a

perplexed effort to think what it was. Measured beside himself the Boy was

rather taller than he looked, but very slender, and his hands and feet

were too small. He had dark eyebrows, peculiarly light luxuriant hair,

and, as a natural accompaniment, a skin of extreme fairness and delicacy.

In fact, he was too fair for his age, it made him look effeminate; and had

it not been for the dark eyebrows and eyelashes his colouring would have

been insipid. As it was, however, there was no lack of character in his

face; and you would have called him "a pretty boy" while thinking it high

time he had grown out of his prettiness. This was the Tenor's reflection,

but his too earnest gaze apparently disconcerted the Boy, who returned it

with one quick anxious glance, then seemed to fake fright, and finally

bolted, leaving the Tenor alone in the road. "That young rascal is out

without leave, and is afraid of being recognized," he concluded.

It was some weeks before they met again, and during the interval the Tenor

often thought of the Boy with curiosity and interest. There was something

unusual in his manner and appearance which would have attracted attention

even if his conversation had not been significant, and that it was

significant the Tenor discovered by the continual recurrence to his mind

of some one or other of the Boy's observations. He had not tried to find

out who the Boy was, interest not having stirred his characteristic apathy

in such matters to that extent, but he looked for him continually both by

day and night, his thoughts being pretty equally divided between him and

the lady whose brilliant glance had had such a magical effect upon him the

first time he encountered it. She came to the cathedral regularly now, and

always sat in the canon's pew; and always when he sang she looked at him,

and he knew that the look was an expression of appreciation and thanks. He

knew, too, that the day she did not come would be a blank day for him.

CHAPTER V.

The moon had grown old, but the nights were still scented by the

lime-trees when the Tenor met the Boy again. He had begun to believe that

the Boy did not live in Morningquest; and, as often happens, he was

thinking of him less than usual on this particular occasion, and hence he

came upon him unawares.

The Boy was lolling against the iron railings that enclosed the grassy

space round which the old lime-trees grew, in the middle of one arm of the

Close. It was a bright, clear night, but chilly, and he was wrapped up in

a greatcoat which lent a little substance to his slender figure. The Tenor

would have passed him without recognizing him, but for his sandy hair,

which shone out palely against the bark of one of the trees.

"I was waiting for you," the Boy said. "Why are you so late to-night?"

"How do you know I am later than usual to-night?" he asked.

"Because, generally, you come out about ten o'clock, and it is nearly

twelve now."

"How do you happen to know I generally come out about ten o'clock?"

"Oh," the Boy answered coolly, "I watched you.' I have been studying your

habits in order to find out what manner of man you are; and I think you'll

do," he added patronizingly, with a wise shake of the head. "I guess you

were looking for me too, weren't you?"

The Tenor smiled again, and, lifting his hat, brushed his hand back over

his hair. "What makes you think so?" he asked.

"I am accustomed to that sort of thing," the Boy replied, with a twinkle

in his eyes. "People who meet me once try, as a rule, to cultivate my

acquaintance," with which he raised himself from his lolling posture, and

added: "I'll walk up and down with you, if you like, but you must give me

your arm. I require support."

"Why? are you tired? What have you been doing to-day?" the Tenor asked as

he acquiesced, smiling in his grave way, for the Boy pleased him.

"Oh, well"--considering--"I got up this morning."

"That was a serious business!"

"It was"--with emphasis--"for I had to settle a serious question before I

arose. I had to make up my mind about free will and predestination. If I

could believe in predestination I thought I might have breakfast in bed

without self-reproach; but if it were a matter of free will, I felt I

should be obliged to get up."

"And how did you settle it?" The tenor asked.

"I didn't settle it," the Boy replied, "for just as I was coming to a

conclusion the breakfast bell rang, and the force of habit compelled me to

jump out of bed in a hurry. I don't call _that_ free will! And I

think, on the whole, predestination had the best of it, perhaps, for my

breakfast was sent up to me after all, without any action on my part, and

I partook of it in the silence and solitude of my own chamber, with an

easy conscience, and the luxuries of an open window and a book. I suppose

you can do that every day if you like? You have no one to interfere with

you."

"I have no one to interfere with me," the Tenor repeated, thoughtfully,

"Perhaps it would be better for me if I had."

"By better you mean happier," the Boy responded, clasping both hands round

the Tenor's arm.

The latter looked down at him, wondering a little, but not displeased.

They were walking in the shadow of the houses just then, and could not see

each other's faces, but the Tenor's heart warmed more and more to this

curious Boy, and he pressed the hand that rested on his arm a little

closer. It was a long time since the grave, large-hearted, earnest man had

known anyone so young and spontaneous, or felt a touch of human sympathy,

and in both he found refreshment--a something of that something which he

knew he needed but could not name.

They took a turn up and down in silence, and then the Boy began again,

boyishly: "I say, do you suffer from nerves? You made rather a bungle of

it the other day, didn't you?"

"You mean when I broke down in that anthem? Were you there? Where did you

sit?"

"With the distinguished strangers, of course."

"I did not see you."

"Did you look behind you?"

"No. But are you a stranger here?"

"Well, not exactly," said the Boy, with a great affectation of candour.

They had passed out into the open now, and the Tenor could see the Boy's

face. He had glanced at him as we do at the person we speak to, but

something he saw arrested his glance, and caused him to look again keenly

and closely--the something that had perplexed him before.

The Boy returned his gaze smiling and unabashed. "She put you out, didn't

she?" he asked with a grin. "Verily, she hath eyes--at least, I've been

told so; but I am no judge of such things myself."

The puzzled look passed from the Tenor's face. "I know what it is," he

said. "You are exactly like her."

The Boy laughed. "I meant to keep it a secret. I was going to make a

mystery of myself," he said; "but faculties like yours are not to be

baffled, and since you have observed so much, I might as well confess that

there are two of us, twins. They call us the Heavenly Twins."

"What, signs of the Zodiac?" said the Tenor.

"No, signs of the times," said the Boy.

There was a little pause and then the Tenor observed: "I should hardly

have thought you were twins, except for the likeness. Your sister looks

older than you do."

"Well, you see, she's so much more depraved," said the Boy. "And her

lovely name is Angelica--excuse me. I must laugh." He slipped his hand

from the Tenor's arm, leant his back against a railing, and exploded.

"Excuse me," he repeated, when he could contain himself. "I have suffered

from this affliction all my life. I can't help laughing."

"So it seems," said the Tenor, "May I ask what provoked this last attack

of your malady?"

Before he could answer, they were accosted by a respectable looking man, a

small farmer from a distance probably, who was making the most of a rare

opportunity by trying to see as much as he could of the cathedral in the

dark.

"I beg your pardon, sir," he said--the Boy was all gravity in a

moment--"but could you tell me what flying buttresses are."

"A sign of rain," said the Boy, whereupon the Tenor seized him by the

scruff of the neck and shook him incontinently. For a moment after he was

released, the Boy seemed to be overcome by astonishment; but this was

rapidly succeeded by an attack of the malady he had declared to be

congenital, apparently brought on by the shock of the chastisement, and

the Tenor, who had walked on a little way with the countryman answering

his questions, left him laughing all over. He waited, leaning against the

railing, until the Tenor returned.

"You little wretch--" the latter began.

"That's right, don't make a stranger of me," the Boy interrupted. "Treat

me like a younger brother. You make me feel that I have succeeded in

establishing confidential relations between us, which is what I want."

The Tenor was about to reply, but his voice was drowned by a sudden

clangour of the bells above them. The clock struck, the chime rang, and

while they waited listening, the Tenor raised his hat. They were standing

at the corner of the cloisters, looking up to the clock tower and its

tapering spire, which surmounted the Norman façade and entrance to the

south transept.

"I must go," the Boy said, when he could hear himself speak.

"Will you not come in--to my house--I am afraid I am very wanting in

hospitality," the Tenor exclaimed. "I should have asked you before. I live

close by. I should be so glad--"

"Not to-night," the Boy interrupted hastily; "another time. Good-bye!"

CHAPTER VI.

When next the Tenor saw Angelica after he had learnt that she was the

Boy's sister, he felt that a new interest had been added to her

attractions.

It was on a Saturday afternoon in the cathedral, as usual, and she came in

late. But almost as soon as she had taken her seat she looked at the Tenor

with an earnest, anxious glance that reminded him of her brother, and her

colour deepened. The Boy had told her then, the Tenor thought, and he was

glad she knew that they had met; it was a bond of union which seemed to

bring her nearer.

He noticed now how like in feature the brother and sister were. The girl

looked taller as well as older, and was altogether on a larger scale, her

figure being amply developed for her age, while the Boy's was fragile to a

fault; her hair was dark too, while his was light; but with these slight

differences there was likeness enough to show that they were twins. They

both had the same shaped eyes, the same straight, well-defined, dark

eyebrows and long lashes, the same features, the same clear skin and even

teeth; but the expression was different. There was never any devilment in

the girl's face; it was always pale and tranquil, almost to sadness, as

the Tenor saw it, standing out in fair relief against the dark oak carving

of the stalls. Her movements were all made, too, with a certain quiet

dignity that seemed habitual. In the Boy, on the contrary, there was no

trace of that graceful attribute. He threw himself about, lolled,

lollopped, and gesticulated, with as much delight in the free play of his

muscles as if he were only let out to exercise them occasionally; and it

seemed as if he must always be at daggers drawn with dignity. But such a

slender intellectual creature could not without absurdity acquire the

ponderous movements and weight of manner of smaller wits and duller

brains. In the girl, quiescence was the natural outcome of womanly reserve;

in the Boy, it would have been mere affectation. His lightness and

brightness were his great charm at present, a charm, however, which was

much enhanced by moments of thoughtfulness, which gave glimpses of another

nature beneath, with more substantial qualities. The Tenor had soon

perceived that he was not all mischief, romp, and boyishness; all that was

on the surface; but beneath there was a strong will at work with some

purpose, or the Tenor, was much mistaken; and there was daring, and there

was originality. This was the Tenor's first impression, and further

acquaintance only confirmed it.

Having formed his opinion of the Boy's abilities, the Tenor began to make

plans for his future, and the selflessness of the man's nature showed

itself in nothing more clearly, perhaps, than in the consideration he gave

to the lad's career. His own had not cost him so much as a thought for

years; but now he roused himself and became ambitious all at once for the

Boy! He believed that there was the making of a distinguished man in him,

and he allowed the hope of being able to influence him in some worthy

direction to become as much a part of his daily life as another hope had

become--a hope which was strongly felt but not yet acknowledged, except in

so far as it took the form of a desire to see her, and made known its

presence with force in the pang of disappointment which he suffered if by

chance she failed to come as usual to the service on Saturday afternoon.

He saw in the girl an ideal, and had found soul enough in the

laughter-loving Boy to make him eager to befriend him.

And thus into the Tenor's life two new interests had found their way, and

something which had hitherto been wanting to make the music of it perfect

was heard at last in his wonderful voice when he sang.

CHAPTER VII.

About this time the weather changed; the nights were wet for a week, and

when it cleared up the Tenor had begun to do some work for the dean which

kept him at home in the evenings, so that he had no opportunity of seeing

the Boy, who only seemed to come abroad at night, for some little time. He

saw his sister, however, in the cathedral regularly once a week, and

always she gave him a friendly glance, by which his days were rounded as

by a blessing, and he felt content. His being so was entirely

characteristic. Another man in his place would have lost the charm of the

present in anxiety to reach some future which should be even more

complete. But the Tenor took no thought for the morrow; each day as it

came was a joy to him, and his hopes, if he had any, were a part of his

peace.

The work he was doing for the dean was interesting. He was making drawings

to illustrate a history of Anglo-Norman times which the dean was writing.

He drew well and with great facility; but these drawings, many of which

were architectural, required special care and accuracy, with the closest

attention to detail, which made the work fatiguing, particularly as he had

to do it at night, his only leisure time just then; and more than once he

had tired himself out, and been obliged to put it away and rest. On one of

these occasions, instead of going to bed, he stretched himself in an

easy-chair beside the open French window which looked out upon the

cathedral, and prepared to indulge in the quiet luxury of a pipe while he

rested his weary eyes. The great cathedral towered above him, and from

where he sat the Tenor caught a beautiful glimpse of it anglewise, of the

south transept and tower and spire; the rich perpendicular windows of the

clerestory, the bold span of the flying buttresses rising out of the plain

but solid Norman base, every detail of which he knew and appreciated.

It was a fair, still, starry night without, and the light air that blew in

upon him was sweet and refreshing. His mind wandered from subject to

subject--a sleepy sign--as he smoked, and presently he put down his pipe

and closed his eyes. He thought then that he had fallen asleep and was

dreaming, and in his dream he fancied he heard himself sing. "This is a

queer dream," he was conscious of saying. "That is my voice exactly. I

have often wondered how it sounded to other people, and now I am listening

to it myself, which is strange." But the strangest part of it was that the

words to which the music shaped itself in his mind were not the words of

any song he knew, but that expression of human nature which contains in

itself some of the grandest harmony in the language:

"These our actors,

As I foretold you, were all spirits, and

Are melted into air, into thin air:

And, like the baseless fabric of this vision,

The cloud-capp'd towers, the gorgeous palaces,

The solemn temples, the great globe itself;

Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve;

And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,

Leave not a wreck behind. We are such stuff

As dreams are made on, and our little life

Is rounded with a sleep."

The last words repeated themselves over and over again, on different notes

and in another key each time, and with such powerful emphasis that at last

it aroused the Tenor, upon whose sleepy brain the fact that it was not a

voice but a violin to which he had been listening, dawned gradually, while

his trained ear further recognized the tone of a rare instrument, and the

touch of a master hand. He got up and went to the window. "Oh!" he

exclaimed, "is it you?" and there was a world of pleasure in the

exclamation. "Come in."

The Boy, who was standing in the road, opened the little garden gate, and

entered. "I am glad you have relented," he said; "for I meant to play

until I had softened your heart, and had persuaded you to take me in; and

the hope deferred was making me sick."

"I was asleep," the Tenor answered. "Why didn't you come in? You must have

known you would be welcome. Here is an easy-chair. Sit down. And, tell me,

why do we only meet at night? What do you do with yourself all day?"

"I am not a daylight beauty," the Boy declared. "I look best at night."

"But seriously?" the Tenor persisted.

"Oh, my tutor, you know--Sandhurst--exams--and that kind of thing."

"You are going into the army then?"

But the Boy, smiling, put the question by. The easy, pleasure-loving,

sensuous side of his nature was evidently uppermost, and when that was the

case it was so natural for him to shirk a disagreeable subject, that the

Tenor had not the heart to pursue it further.

"Won't you take your hat off?" he said presently.

The Boy put up both hands to it. "My head's a queer shape," he said,

tapping it. "You won't want to examine it phrenologically, will you?"

"No," the Tenor answered, smiling. "Not if you object."

"I do object. I don't like to be touched."

The Tenor, still smiling, watched, him as he carefully removed his hat.

His head was rather a peculiar shape. It was too broad at the back, and

too large altogether for his slight frame, though probably the thickness

of his fluffy light hair, which stood up all over it, innocent of parting

as the Tenor's own, added considerably to this last defect. There was

nothing so very extraordinary about it, however, and the Tenor did not see

why he should be sensitive on the subject, and rather suspected that the

boy was gravely poking fun at him; but as he could not be sure of this,

and would not have hurt his feelings for the world, he forebore to make

any remark.

The Boy glanced round the room. "What a wealthy luxurious fellow you are,"

he observed.

"These appearances of wealth, as you call it, are delusive," the Tenor

answered. "I just happened to have money enough to furnish my house when I

came here; but I am a very poor man now. I have little or nothing, in

fact, but my salary for singing in the choir."

"Oh," said the Boy. "And you might be so rich with your voice."

The Tenor brushed his hand back over his hair.

"Are you lazy?" the Boy demanded.

"No." he answered, smiling again. The Boy kept him smiling perpetually.

"What is it, then? Why don't you work?"

"Well, I do work," the Tenor answered him.

"I mean, why don't you make money?"

"Oh--because I have no one to make it for."

"If you had"--and the Boy leant forward eagerly--"would you? Would you

work for a lady who loved you if she gave herself to you?"

"I would work for my wife," said the Tenor.

"Are you engaged?" the Boy asked. There seemed no limit to his capacity

for asking.

The Tenor shook his head, and shook the ashes out of his pipe at the same

time.

"Are you in love?" the Boy persisted.

The Tenor made no reply to this impertinence, but a glow spread over his

face, forehead and chin and throat.

The Boy, whom nothing escaped, leant back satisfied. "I know what it is,"

he said, "She's married, and you don't like to ask her to run away with

you. I expect she would, you know, if you did."

The Tenor threw himself back in his chair and laughed.

His mirth seemed to jar on the Boy, who got up and began to pace about the

room, frowning and dissatisfied.

"You look pale," the Tenor said. "Have you been ill since; I saw you?"

"No--yes," the Boy answered. "I had a bad cold. I was very sorry for

myself."

The Tenor took up his violin, and examined it. "Where did you study?" he

asked.

"Everywhere," was the ungraciously vague reply.

"I wish you would play again," the Tenor said, taking no notice of his

ill-humour. "It would be a rare treat for a hermit like me."

"No," was the blunt rejoinder. "I don't want to make music. I want to

explore."

"Well, make yourself at home," the Tenor said, humouring him

good-naturedly.

"_Make_ me at home," the Boy replied. "Confidential relations, you

know. You may smoke if you like."

"Oh, thank you," the Tenor answered politely, sitting down in his

easy-chair, from which he had risen to look at the violin, and taking up

his pipe again.

The Boy was rummaging about now, and, finding much to interest him, he

presently recovered his temper, and began to banter his host. But even

this outlet was scarcely sufficient for his superfluous life and energy,

so he emphasized his remarks by throwing a stray cushion or two at the

Tenor; he jumped over the chairs instead of walking round them, and

performed an occasional _pas seul_, or pirouette, in various parts of

the room. When these innocent amusements palled upon him, he took up his

violin and played a plaintive air, to which he chanted:

"There was a merry dromedary

Waltzing on the plain;

Dromedary waltzing, dromedary prancing.

And all the people said, it is a sign of rain,

When they saw the good beast dancing;"

executing grotesque steps himself at the same time in illustration.

"Oh, Boy, forbear!" the Tenor exclaimed at last, "or you will be the death

of me."

"That's it," the Boy responded cheerfully. "I mean to be life or death to

you."

After this he sat down on a high-backed chair, with his hands in his

pockets, his legs stretched out before him, and his chin on his chest,

looking up from under his eyebrows at the Tenor thoughtfully. It was an

interval of great gravity, and when he spoke again the Tenor looked for

something serious.

"I say," he began at last.

The Tenor took his pipe from his mouth and waited, interrogatively.

"I say, I'm hungry."

The Tenor looked his dismay.

"Boys always are, you know," the youth added, encouragingly.

"And if there should be nothing in the house!" the poor Tenor ejaculated.

"I'll go and see."

He returned quite crestfallen. "There _is_ nothing," he said; "at

least nothing but bread--no butter even."

"I don't believe you," said the Boy, rousing himself from his indolent

attitude.

"Boy, you mustn't say you don't believe me."

"But I don't," said the Boy. "I don't believe you know where to look. Are

the servants out?"

"Yes, my solitary attendant doesn't sleep here."

"Then I'll go and look myself."

"Oh, do, if you like," said the Tenor, much amused. And thinking the Boy

would enjoy himself best if he were left to rummage at his own sweet will,

he took up a book, brushed his hand back over his shining hair, and was

soon absorbed, But presently he was startled by a wild cry of distress

from the kitchen, and, jumping up hastily, he went to see what was the

matter.

He found the Boy standing at one end of the kitchen, clutching a vegetable

dish, and gazing with a set expression of absolute horror at some object

quite at the other end. The Tenor strained his own eyes in the same

direction, but could not at first make anything out. At last, however, he

distinguished a shining black thing moving, which proved to be a small

cockroach.

"Well, you _are_ a baby!" he exclaimed.

"I'm not," the Boy snapped. "It's an idiosyncrasy. I can't bear creepy

crawly things. They give me fits."

"I begin to perceive, Boy, that you have a reason for everything," the

Tenor observed, as he disposed of the innocent object of the Boy's

abhorrence.

"Put it out of sight," the latter entreated, looking nauseated.

But as soon as the Tenor had accomplished his mandate, his good humour

returned, and he began to beam again. "What a duffer you are!" he said,

taking the lid off the dish he held in his hand. "You have no imagination.

You never lifted a dish cover. Why, I've found a dozen eggs--fresh, for I

broke one into a cup to see; and here are a whole lot of cold potatoes."

"It doesn't sound appetizing; cold potatoes and raw eggs!"

"Sound! It isn't sound you judge by in matters of this kind. Just you

wait, and you shall see, smell, and taste."

"Well, if it please you," the Tenor answered lazily. "I see something

already. You have lighted a fire."

"Yes, and I've used all the dry sticks," said the Boy, with great glee.

"Won't the old woman _swear_ when she comes in the morning!"

The Tenor returned to his book, reflecting, as he prepared to resume it,

on the wonderful provision of nature which endows the growing animal not

only with such strong instincts of self-preservation, but with the power

to gratify them, and to take itself off at the same time and be happy in

so doing, thus saving those who have outgrown these natural proclivities

from some of their less agreeable consequences.

Presently a hot red face appeared at the door. "Did you say you liked your

eggs turned?" the Boy wanted to know.

"I didn't say; but I do, if you're frying them."

"And hard or soft?"

"Oh, soft."

"How many can you eat?"

"Half-a-dozen at least," the Tenor returned at random.

"And I can eat three"--with great gravity--"that will make nine, and leave

three for your breakfast in the morning. I daresay you won't want more

after such a late supper, I don't think I should myself."

"But do you mean me to understand that the voracity of the growing animal

will be satisfied with less than I can eat?"

"Well, you see," the Boy explained apologetically, "the heat of the fire

has taken a lot out of me."

"But the waste must be repaired."

"Yes, but the expenditure has been followed by a certain amount of

exhaustion, and the power to repair the waste has yet to be generated; it

will come as a sort of reaction of the organs which can only set in after

a proper period of repose--a sort of interregnum of their energies, you

know."

The Tenor threw back his golden head. "Oh, Boy!" he expostulated, "don't

make me laugh again to-night, don't, please!"

The Boy was very busy for the next ten minutes, arranging the table, and

quite in his element; cooing as he proceeded, and giving little muttered

reasons to himself, in his soft contralto voice, for everything he did.

That voice of his was wonderfully flexible; he could make it harsh,

grating, gruffly mannish, and caressing as a woman's, at will, but the

tone that seemed natural to it was the deep, mellow contralto into which

he always relapsed when not thinking of himself. The Tenor thought it

hardly rough enough for a boy of his age, but it was in harmony with his

fragile form, and delicate, effeminate features.

"Whom the gods love die young," flashed through his mind as he watched him

now, coming and going; and he sighed, it seemed so likely; and felt

already that he should miss the Boy; and wondered, with retrospective

self-pity, how he had managed to live at all with no such interest.

"A golden-headed, gray-eyed, white-toothed, fine-skinned son of the

morning must be a sybarite," the Boy observed, entering the room at that

moment; "so I bring flowers, and also salad, just cut and crisp."

"May I ask how you knew there was salad in my garden?"

"Well, you may _ask_," the Boy responded cheerfully; "but--let me

see, though--perhaps I had better tell you. I found that out the last time

I was here. Perhaps you don't know that I came? I wanted to discover the

resources of the place, so I took advantage of your temporary absence on

business one day, and inspected it."

"Where was I?" the Tenor asked.

"You were busy at the fire insurance office opposite."

"Do you mean the cathedral? Boy, I will not let you mock."

The Boy grinned. "It was the only time I could be at all sure of you," he

pursued. "You were going to sing a solo. I saw it advertised in the paper,

and laid my plans accordingly. But I _was_ in a fright! I thought you

might just happen to feel bad and be obliged to come out, and catch me. I

felt that strongly when I was picking your flowers in the greenhouse."

He left the room before the Tenor recovered, and returned with a tray on

which was the result of his enterprise.

"If you don't like eggs and potatoes fried as I fry them, you'll never

like anything again in this world," he asserted confidently, helping the

Tenor as he spoke. "The thing is to have the dripping boiling to begin

with, you know," he continued--"(I'll only give you two eggs at a

time)--then plunge them in, and as they brown take them off one by one and

put them on a hot dish--I'm speaking of the potatoes now; but don't cover

them up, it makes them flabby, and the great thing is to keep them crisp."

"They really are good," said the Tenor. But he had overestimated his

capacity, and could only dispose of three of the eggs.

The Boy was disgusted. However, he said it did not matter, since he was

there to sacrifice himself in the interests of science, and preserve the

balance of nature by eating the rest himself, a feat he accomplished

easily.

"Now this is what I call good entertainment for man and beast," he

observed.

"May I ask which is the beast?" the Tenor ventured.

"Why, I am, of course," said the Boy. "Did you ever know a boy who wasn't

half a beast?"

"Yes. It is all a matter of early association and surroundings."

"Well, if you knew the kind of moral atmosphere I have to breathe at home,

you would know also how little you ought to expect of me. But what shall

we drink?"

"There is some beer, I believe," the Tenor said dubiously.

"Burgundy is more in my line."

"Burgundy! A boy like you shouldn't know the difference.

"A _boy_ like me wouldn't, probably."

The Tenor smiled. "And what do you call yourself, pray? A man?" he asked.

"No; a bright particular spirit."

It was not inappropriate, the Tenor thought, and he got up. "It does not

often happen so," he said; "but now I think of it I believe I have some

Burgundy in the house. The dean sent me a dozen the last time I was out of

sorts, and there is some left."

"I know," said the Boy. "It is in the cupboard under the stairs on the

left hand side."

When the Tenor came back with the Burgundy the Boy settled himself in an

easy-chair with a glass on the table beside him, and it was evident that

his mood had changed. He was thoughtful for a little, sitting with solemn

eyes, looking out at the cathedral opposite.

There was only one rose-shaded lamp left alight in the long low room, and

the dimness within made it possible to see out into the clear night and

distinguish objects easily.

"When I look out at that great pile and realize its antiquity, I suffer,"

the Boy said at last, "Do you know what it is, the awful oppression of the

ages?"

The Tenor did not answer for a moment, then he said:

"I never see you at church."

"I should think not," the Boy replied, still speaking seriously. "You

never see anyone but Angelica."

The Tenor flushed.

"Why do you never speak to that sweet young lady?" the Boy asked

tentatively, after a little pause.

"I! How could I?"

"I fancy you ought to," the Boy went on, endeavouring to "draw" the Tenor.

"You can't expect her to make up to you, you know."

"Oh, Boy! how can you be so young!" the Tenor exclaimed, with a gesture of

impatience, but still amused.

The Boy sipped his wine, and gazed into the glass, delighting in the rich

deep colour. "I should think she would be delighted to make the

acquaintance of so great an artist," he said.

The Tenor bowed ironically. "May I ask if you are pursuing your

investigations as to what manner of man I am?" he asked.

"Well, yes," was the candid rejoinder; "I was. I suppose you think that

you ought not to speak without an introduction. Well, say I gave you one."

The Tenor laughed. He felt that he ought to let the subject drop, and at

the same time yielded to temptation.

"What would your introduction be worth?" he asked.

"Everything," the Boy rejoined. "I am on excellent terms with Angelica. We

have always been inseparable, and I get on with her capitally; and she's

not so easy to get on with, I can tell you," he added, as if taking credit

to himself.

"When she is good she is very good indeed,

But when she is naughty she is horrid.

"And just now she's mostly naughty. She isn't very happy."

The interest expressed in the Tenor's attitude was intensified, and

inquiry came into his eyes.

"She is not very happy," the Boy pursued with extreme deliberation,

"because you come no nearer."

"Boy, you are romancing," the Tenor said, with a shade of weariness in his

voice.

"I am not," the Boy replied. "I know all that Angelica thinks, and it is

of you--"

"Hush!" the Tenor exclaimed. "You must not tell me."

"But she--"

"I will not allow it."

"Well, there then, don't bite," said the Boy; "and I won't tell you

against your will that she thinks a great deal about you"--this

_presto_, in order to get it out before the Tenor could stop him.

"But I will tell you on my own account that I don't know the woman who

wouldn't."

A vivid flush suffused the Tenor's face, and he turned away.

"I hope you never say things like that to your sister," he objected, after

a time.

The Boy grinned. "Sometimes I do," he said, "only they're generally more

so."

There was a long silence after this, during which the Tenor changed his

attitude repeatedly. He was much disturbed, and he showed it. The Boy made

a great pretence of sipping his wine, but he had not in reality taken much

of it. He was watching the Tenor, and it was curious how much older he

looked while so engaged. The Tenor must have noticed the change in him,

which was quite remarkable, giving him an entirely different character,

but for his own preoccupation. As it was, however, he noticed nothing.

"Boy," he began at last, in a low voice and hesitating, "I want you to

promise me something." The Boy leant forward all attention. "I want you to

promise that you will not say anything like that--anything at all about me

to--"

"To Angelica?" The Boy seemed to think. "I will promise," he slowly

decided, "if you will promise me one thing in return."

"What is it?"

"Will you promise to tell me everything you think about her."

The Tenor laughed.

"You might as well," the Boy expostulated. "I've got to look after you

both and see that you don't make fools of yourselves. The youngness of

people in love is a caution!" And I should like to see Angelica safely

settled with you. A man with a voice like yours is a match for anyone.

There are obstacles, of course; but they can be got over--if you will

trust me."

"Oh, you impossible child!" the Tenor exclaimed.

"It is you who are impossible," the Boy said, in dudgeon. "You are too

ideal, too content to worship from afar off as Dante worshipped Beatrice.

I believe that was what killed her. If Dante had come to the scratch, as

he should have done, she would have been all right."

"Beatrice was a married woman," the Tenor observed.

The Boy shrugged his shoulders, but just then the cathedral clock struck

three, and he hastily finished his wine.

"I'll disperse," he said, when the chime was over. "Take care of my

fiddle. You'll find the case under the sofa. I left it the last time I was

here. By-the-bye, you should make the old woman stay at home to look after

the place when you're out. Unscrupulous people might walk in uninvited,

you know. Ta, ta," and the Tenor found himself alone.

It was no use to go to bed, he could not rest. His heart burned within

him. It was no use to tell himself that the Boy was only a boy. He knew

what he was saying, and he spoke confidently. He was one of those who are

wiser in their generation than the children of light. And he had

said--what was it he had said? Not much in words, perhaps, but he had

conveyed an impression. He had made the Tenor believe that she thought of

him. He believed it, and he disbelieved it. If she thought of him--he

threw himself down on the sofa, and buried his face in the cushions. The

bare supposition made every little nerve in his body tingle with joy. He

ought not to indulge in hope, perhaps; but, as the Boy himself might have

observed, you can't expect much sense from a man in that state of mind.

A few days later the Tenor saw his lady again in the canon's pew, and he

was sure, quite sure, she tried to suppress a smile.

"That little wretch has told her, and she is laughing at my presumption,"

was his distressed conclusion. "I'll wring his neck for him when he comes

again."

But when the service was over, and he had taken his surplice off, she

passed him in the nave, so close that he might have touched her, and

looked at him with eyes just like the Boy when he was shy; gave him a

quick half-frightened look, and blushed vividly; gave him time to speak,

too, had he chosen. But the Tenor was not the man to take advantage of a

girlish indiscretion.

When he went home, however, he was glad. And he opened his piano and sang

like one-inspired. "I am gaining more power in everything," he said to

himself, "I could make a position for her yet."

CHAPTER VIII.

A few nights later the Tenor went out for a stroll, leaving the windows

of his sitting room closed but not fastened, and the lamp turned down. On

his return he was surprised to find the window wide open and the room lit

up. The little garden gate was shut and bolted, He could easily have

reached over and opened it from the outside, but knowing that it creaked,

and not wanting to disturb his nocturnal visitor until he had ascertained

his occupation, he jumped over it lightly, walked across the grass plot to

the window, and looked in.

It was the Boy, of course. The Tenor recognized him at once, although all

he could see of him at first were his legs as he knelt on the floor with

his back to him and his head and shoulders under a sofa. "What, in the

name of fortune, is he up to now?" the Tenor wondered.

Just then the boy got up, frowning, and flushed with stooping. He stamped

his foot impatiently, and looked all round the room in search of

something. Suddenly his face cleared. He had discovered his violin oh the

top of a bookshelf above him, and that was apparently what he wanted, for

he made a dash at it, and took it down, and hugged it affectionately.

The Tenor smiled, and stepped down into the room. He did not wish to take

his visitor unawares, but the carpet was soft and thick, and his quick

step as he crossed to where the boy was standing with his back to him,

absorbed in the contemplation of his beloved instrument, made no noise, so

that when the Tenor laid his hand on the Boy's shoulder he did startle him

considerably. The Boy did not drop his instrument, but he uttered an

almost womanish shriek, and faced round with such a scared white look that

the Tenor thought he was going to faint. He recovered immediately,

however, and then exclaimed angrily: "How dare you startle me so?

Everybody knows I can't bear to be startled. If you are nothing but a

blunderer you will spoil everything. And I bolted the gate too. It would

have made a noise if you had opened it as you ought to have done, and then

I should have known, I've a good mind to go away now, and never come back

again."

"I am very sorry," said the Tenor. "But how was I to know it was you? It

might have been a thief."

"Thieves don't come to steal grand pianos and armchairs in lighted

chambers with the windows open and the blinds up," the Boy retorted.

"Don't you feel mean, spying around like that?"

"Are you an American?" the Tenor interrupted blandly.

"Yes, I am"--with asperity--"and you must have known quite well it was me.

Who else could get into the Close after the gates were shut?"

"I never thought of that," said the Tenor. "And how _do_ you get in,

pray? By the postern?"

"No," was the answer, "I come by the water-gate;" and his face cleared as

he saw the Tenor's puzzled glance at his garments.

"I'm not wet," he said. "I don't swim."

"But the ferry does not cross after six."

"No, but I do, you see. And now let us make music," he added, his good

humour restored by the Tenor's mystification. "If you will be so good as

to accompany me with your piano, I will give you a treat. I brought my

music the last time I was here;" and there it was, piled up, on a chair

beside the instrument.

The Tenor could have sworn that neither chair nor music was there when he

went out that evening, but what was the use of swearing? He felt sure that

the Boy in his present mood would have outsworn him without scruple had it

pleased him to maintain his assertion, so he opened his piano in silence,

and the music began. And it was a rare treat indeed which the Tenor

enjoyed that night. The Boy played with great technical mastery of the

instrument, but even that was not so remarkable as the originality of his

interpretations. He possessed that sympathetic comprehension of the

masters' ideas which is the first virtue of a musician; but even when he

was most true to it, he managed to throw some of his strong individuality

into the rendering, and hence the originality which was the special charm

of his playing. As an artist, he certainly satisfied; even the sensitive

soul of the Tenor was refreshed when he played; but in other respects he

was obviously deficient. So long as things were pleasant it was a question

whether he would ever stop to ask himself if they were right. Acts which

lead to no bodily evil, such as sickness or that lowering of the system

which lessens the power of enjoyment, he was not likely in his present

phase to see much objection to; and for the truth, for verbal accuracy in

his assertions that is, he had no particular respect. All this, however,

the Tenor was more reluctant to acknowledge, perhaps, than slow to

perceive. He was one of those who expect a great soul to accompany great

gifts, and what he did know of the Boy's shortcomings he condoned. He

believed the young tone-poet's power was in itself an indication of high

aspirations, and those he thought were only temporarily suppressed by a

boyish affectation of cynicism.

But the Boy did not give the Tenor much time to think. His mind was

quick-glancing, like his eyes when he was animated, and he carried the

Tenor along with him from one occupation to another with distracting glee.

When he was tired of making music, as he called it, he demanded food, and,

so long as he could cook it and serve it himself, he delighted in bacon

and eggs, as much as he did in Bach and Beethoven.

The Tenor tried to wean him of his nocturnal habits, but to this the Boy

would not listen. He said he liked to sit up all night, and when he said

he liked a thing, he seemed to think he had adduced an unanswerable

argument in its favour. The Tenor complained of fatigue. The long nights

affected his voice, he said, and made him unfit for work; but the Boy only

grinned at this, and told him he'd get used to it. Then he threatened to

shut up the house and go to bed if the Boy did not come in proper time,

and on one occasion he carried out his threat; but when the Boy arrived he

made night hideous with horrid howls until the Tenor could stand it no

longer, and was obliged to get up, and let him in, to preserve the peace

of the neighbourhood. After which the Tenor ceased to remonstrate, and it

became one of the pleasures of his life to prepare for this terrible

hungry Boy. He worked in his garden early and late, cultivating the

succulent roots which the latter loved, the fruits and the vegetables,

and, last, but not least, the flowers, for he never could feed without

flowers, be said, and the Tenor ministered to this exaction with the rest.

"He is dainty because he is delicate," the Tenor thought, always excusing

him. "When he is older and stronger he will grow out of all these

epicurean niceties of taste, I must make him dig, too, and fence, and row.

He'll soon develop more manliness."

That he was spoiling the Boy in the meantime never occurred to him, not

even when he noticed that the latter took all these kindnesses as a matter

of course, and only grumbled when some accustomed attention was omitted.

The Tenor was vexed sometimes, and obliged to find fault, but the Boy

could always soothe him. "I am sure you love me," he would say. "Your life

was not worth living until I came, and you could not live without me now.

I am a horrid little brute I know, but I have my finer feelings too, my

capacity for loving, and that raises me.

"All love is sweet

Given or returned."

When the Boy quoted or recited anything he really felt, he had a way of

lingering over the words as if each syllable were a pleasure to him. The

deep contralto of his voice was at its sweetest then, and he seldom failed

to make his own mood felt as he intended.

The Tenor, justly incensed by some wicked piece of mischief, was often

obliged to turn away that he might maintain his authority and not be seen

to soften. But he never deceived the Boy, who could gauge the effect of

his persuasion to a nicety, and would grin like a fiend behind the Tenor's

back at the success of his own eloquence. No matter what he had done, by

hook or by crook he always managed to bring about a reconciliation before

they parted. He knew the Tenor's weak point--Angelica--and when everything

else failed he would play upon that unmercifully. But he had a way of

speaking of his sister which often made the Tenor seriously angry. He did

not believe the Boy meant half the disrespect with which he mentioned her,

but it galled him, nevertheless; and, on one occasion, when the Boy had

repeated some scandalous gossip to which the Tenor objected, and afterward

excused himself by saying that it was not his but his sister's story, the

Tenor's indignation overflowed, and he lectured him severely.

"You should never forget that your sister is an innocent girl," he said,

"and it is degrading to her even to have her name associated with such

ideas."

But the Boy only grinned. "Bless you," he retorted, "don't make so much

ado about nothing. She's quite as wise as we are."

The Tenor's eyes flashed. "I call that disloyal," he said. "Even if it

were true--and it is not true--it would be disloyal; and I am ashamed of

you. If you ever dare to speak of your sister in that light way to me

again, I'll thrash you."

For a moment the Boy was astonished by the threat. His jaw dropped, and he

stared at the Tenor; but, quickly recovering himself, he burst into an

uncontrollable fit of laughter. "Oh, my!" he exclaimed. "What a

brother-in-law you would be! How do you know she is such a saint?"

"You are a little brute," was all the answer the Tenor vouchsafed. But the

question made him think. He could picture her to himself at any time as he

saw her in the canon's pew, and the pale proud purity of her face, with

the unvarying calm of her demeanour, were assurances enough for him. His

dear lady. His delicate-minded girl. He would stop it. He would make this

scapegrace brother of hers respect her, even as he had threatened, if

necessary.

"Do you know what she calls you?" that youth asked presently, breaking in

upon the Tenor's meditation in a confident way, as if he could not be

mistaken about the subject of it.

But the Tenor was not to be beguiled all at once. "I have already

requested you not to mention your sister to me," he said.

"I know," was the cool rejoinder. "But I promised on my word of honour to

tell you what she calls you. She calls you Israfil--Is-ra-fil," he

repeated, "the angel of song, you know."

But the Tenor made no sign. The Boy watched him a moment, and then

continued unabashed, "I shall call you Israfil myself, I think, for the

future. But I like your own name too!" he added. "I have only just found

it out. Everybody here calls you the Tenor, you know."

"And how did you find it out, pray, if I may ask?"

"I looked everywhere," said the Boy, glancing round him comprehensively;

"and at last I found it on the back of an old envelope that was in that

Bible you keep in your bedroom. Here it is," and he took it out of his

pocket-book. "David Julian Vanetemple, Esq., Haysthorpe Castle, Hays,

N.B."

A painful spasm contracted the Tenor's face, "Oh, Boy," he said, in a deep

stern voice that made the latter quail for once; "have you no sense of

honour at all? You must give that back to me immediately."

The Boy returned it without a word, and the Tenor went upstairs. His step

was listless, and when he came back he looked pale and disheartened. He

sat down in his accustomed seat beside the fireplace farthest from the

window that looked out upon the cathedral, but facing it himself, and

rested his elbow on the arm of the chair and his head on his hand, taking

no notice of the Boy, however, who waited a while, casting anxious glances

at him, and then rose softly and stole away.

When the Tenor roused himself he found a slip of paper on the table beside

him, on which was written, "Dear Israfil, I beg your pardon. I did it

without thinking. I will never hurt you like that again, only forgive me."

And the Tenor forgave him.

On another occasion, when there was peace between them, and they were both

in a merry mood, the Boy said he had a grievance, and when the Tenor asked

what it was, he complained that the Tenor had never taken interest enough

in him to ask him his name.

"No, now you mention it," the Tenor answered. "I never thought of your

having a name."

"Do you mean to say you think me such a nonentity?"

"Just the opposite. Your individuality is so strongly marked that you

don't seem to require to be labelled like other people, By-the-bye, what

is your name?"

"Claude."

The Tenor laughed ironically. "Oh, no," he said, "it is Maude you mean;

delicate, dainty, white-fingered Maude."

But the Boy only roared. This kind of insinuation never roused his

resentment; on the contrary, it delighted him. "Imagine the feelings of

the flowers," he said, with a burst of laughter that convulsed him, "if my

remarkable head, sunning over with curls, were to shine out on them

suddenly, and want to be their sun!"

"I am afraid you are incorrigible," the Tenor answered. "You seem to glory

in being effeminate. If wholesome ridicule has no effect, you'll die an

old woman in the opprobrious sense of the word."

"I'll make you respect these delicate fingers of mine, though," the Boy

irritably interposed, and then he took up his violin. "I'll make you

quiver."

He drew a long melodious wail from the instrument, then lightly ran up the

chromatic scale and paused on an upper note for an instant before he

began, with perfect certainty of idea and marvellous modulations and

transitions in the expression of it, to make music that steeped the

Tenor's whole being in bliss.

The latter had noticed before that it was to his senses absolutely, not at

all to his intellect, that the Boy's playing always appealed; but he did

not quarrel with it on that account, for music was the only form of

sensuous indulgence he ever rioted in, and besides, once under the spell

of the Boy's playing, he could not have resisted it even if he would, so

completely was he carried away. The Boy's white fingers were certainly not

out of place at such work. "Do I play like an old woman in the opprobrious

sense of the word?" he demanded, mimicking the Tenor.

"Oh, Boy!" the latter exclaimed, with a deep drawn sigh of satisfaction.

"Yon have genius. When you play you are like that creature in the 'Witch

of Atlas':

A sexless thing it was, and in its growth

It seemed to have developed no defect

Of either sex, yet all the grace of both."

But the Boy frowned for a moment at the definition, and then he said: "Is

that what you call genius? Now I make it something like that, only

different. I believe it is the attributes of both minds, masculine and

feminine, perfectly united in one person of either sex."

The Tenor, lolling in his easy-chair, smiled at him lazily. There was no

end to his indulgence of the Boy; but still he led him, by example

principally, but also by suggestion, as on one occasion when the Boy had

been sketching out a scheme of life in which self was all predominant, and

the Tenor asked: "Do you never feel any impulse to do something for your

suffering fellow-creatures?"

To which the Boy at first rejoined derisively: "Am I not one of the best

of their benefactors? Would you say that a fellow who plays as I can does

nothing for his fellow-creatures? To make music is my vocation, and I

follow it like a man."

But after a moment's thought he confessed; "Once indeed I did try to do

some good in the world, but I failed disastrously,"

"What did you try?"

"I took a class in a Sunday school." He waited to enjoy the effect of this

announcement on the Tenor. "I did, indeed," he protested; "but--eh--I

cannot say that success attended the effort. In fact, both I and my class

were forcibly ejected from the building before the school closed. You see,

I had no vocation, and it was foolish to experiment."

The Tenor said no more on the subject and did not mean to, but the Boy

returned to it himself eventually, and it was evident that the wish to do

something for somebody was taking possession of him seriously. This was

the Tenor's tactful way with him; and from such slight indications of

awakening thought he continued to augur well for the Boy.

CHAPTER IX.

So time passed on, changing all things greatly, or with infinitesimal

changes, according to their nature. The colours worn in crowded

thoroughfares varied with the varying fashions; the tint of the summer

foliage with sun and rain and dust. Doors, closed the whole long winter,

were opened now and left so, and the young people passed to and fro,

thronging to river banks, but lately deserted; to the cricket fields,

garden, or wood, or lawn. The very faces of the streets were changing,

enlivened by plaster and paint and polish: the face of the land with the

certain advance of the season; the faces of friends with something not to

be named, but visible, strange, and, for the most part, disheartening. It

was the old story for ever and ever; all things changed always; but the

chime was immutable.

As the days grew gradually to weeks, his one connecting link with the

outer world became dearer and dearer to the lonely Tenor. The nights that

brought the Boy were happy nights, looked forward to with eagerness, and

prepared for with difficulty. For at this time the Tenor denied himself

some of the bare necessaries of life, that he might buy him the Burgundy

he loved to sip: he did no more than sip, and, therefore, the Tenor

indulged him; drink was not to be one of his vices, evidently.

The Tenor, although he would not have acknowledged it, held that the Boy

was a creature apart, and one, therefore, whom it was not fair to measure

by the common standard. Doubtless the manner of their meeting had

something to do with this idea. The Boy was associated in the Tenor's mind

with many sweet associations; with the beautiful still night; with the

Tenor's far off ideal of all that is gracious and womanly; with the music

that was in him; and, further, with a sympathetic comprehension of those

moments when gray glimpses of the old cathedral, or a warm breath of

perfumed air from the garden, or some slight sound, such as the note of a

night bird breaking the silence, fired a train of deep emotion, and set

his whole poetic nature quivering, to the unspeakable joy of it; joy

sanctified by reverence, and enlarged beyond comparison by love.

With such moods as these the Boy's own mood was always in harmony; so much

so indeed that the Tenor thought it was then that he was himself, and that

those wild ebullitions of spirits were only affected to disguise some

deeper feeling of which, boy-like, he was ashamed. As their intimacy

ripened there were times when, not only his whole demeanour, but his very

nature seemed to change; when he craved for dimness and quiet; and when he

would work upon the Tenor with little caressing ways that won his heart

and drew from him, although he was habitually undemonstrative, expressions

of tenderness which were almost paternal.

In his quieter moods the Boy would sit in the dim lamplight on a footstool

beside the Tenor's chair, leaning his head against the arm of it, while

the latter smoked, and the tap, tap, tap, of the clematis and honeysuckle

on the window pane kept time to the thoughts of each. Long intervals of

silence were natural to the Tenor, and it was generally the Boy who broke

the charm. He would talk seriously then, and often about his sister, and

was not to be silenced until he had had his say. He conquered the Tenor as

usual by his persistence, but the latter was not much influenced by what

he said at first. Gradually, however, and by dint of constant iteration,

some of the Boy's assertions became impressed upon his mind. He began to

believe that Angelica did wish to make his acquaintance, and to admit to

himself that there might be a possibility of winning her regard eventually;

but his high mindedness shrank from approaching a girl whose social

position was so far above his own--in the matter of money that is. For of

course the Tenor had a proper respect for art. He knew that to be a great

artist, with the will and power to make his art elevating, is to be great

in the greatest way; and he also knew that his own gift was second to

none. But would she link her lot with his? He yearned for some assurance.

He had no ambition whatever for himself, but he would have toiled to

succeed for her. It was his weakness to require someone to work for as he

was working for the Boy; a purely personal ambition seemed to him a

vexing, vain, and insufficient motive for action. All selfless people

suffer from indolence when only their own interests are in question; they

require a strong incentive from without to arouse them. Such incentive as

the Tenor had was in itself a pleasure to him, a refinement of pleasure

which might be coarsened, which certainly would be impaired by any change.

He had, however, begun to make plans. He was determined to go and take his

place amongst the singers of the world; but when, exactly, he had not

decided. As the Boy declared, when it came to the point he found it

difficult to tear himself away from Morningquest. Of course he would go,

in fact he felt he must go, soon--say, when these drawings for his good

friend the dean were finished.

"By the way, Boy," he asked one night, "what is your family name? and who

are your people?"

"My family name is Wells," the boy answered demurely. "My father has a

little place in the neighbourhood, and my grandfather lives here too."

"Wells," the Tenor repeated. "I seem to know the name."

"Oh, doubtless," the Boy observed. "This is a hotbed of Wellses. Israfil,"

he pleaded--he was nestling beside the Tenor in the dim half light,

watching the latter smoke--"Israfil, tell me all about yourself? Tell me

about that old castle in the North to which your letter was addressed.

Tell me who you are? I want your sympathy."

"You have it all, dear Boy," the Tenor said.

"I shall not feel that I have until you ask for mine. You would not deny

me this if you knew what a stranger I am to the luxury of loving. I want

to cultivate the power to care for others. Just now I don't seem to be

able to sympathise with anyone for more than a moment, and that is the

cause of all you object to in me. But if you would confide in me, if you

would make me feel that I am nearer to you than anybody else is, I believe

I could be different."

The Tenor reflected for a little. "If I were to make you my confidant,

Boy, would you respect my confidence?" he said at last.

"Assuredly," the Boy replied. "I promise on my honour. You shall tell her

yourself."

The Tenor ignored this last impertinence, but the Boy was not abashed.

"Israfil," he pursued, "they say you are the son of an actress and some

great nobleman, and that when you found it out, your intolerable pride

made you give up your profession, and come and bury yourself alive in

Morningquest because you could not bear the stigma. Are you the son of

such parents, Israfil?"

The Tenor brushed his hand back over his hair. "Has your sister heard

these reports?" he asked.

"Yes."

"And what does she say?"

"Oh, _she_ doesn't mind! She rather leans to the nobleman theory; and

when people of that kind--I mean the nobility and gentry," he exclaimed

with a grin--"(the worst of being in society is that you are forced to

know so many disreputable people); when they come to our house--and they

do come in shoals, Angelica being the attraction, you know--then we

speculate. Angelica feels quite sure that the Duke of Morningquest himself

is your father. He was a loose old fish, they say. And there is a sort of

family likeness between you. Angelica thinks you came here that your

presence might be a continual reproach to him."

"Not a very worthy thought," said the Tenor drily.

"Well," said the Boy with much candour. "I could not swear it was

Angelica's. It has a strong family likeness to some of my own."

"It has," said the Tenor.

He was lolling in his deep easy-chair with his hands folded on his vest

and his legs crossed, and now he laid his sunny head back wearily against

the cushion, and looked up at the ceiling. It was his accustomed attitude

in moments of abstraction, and the Boy let him alone for a little,

watching him quietly. Then he grew impatient, and broke the silence:

"_Is_ it true, Israfil?" he asked.

"Is what true?" lowering his eyes to look at him without changing his

position.

"Is it true that you are the son of an actress and a duke?"

"Probably," the Tenor answered; "anything is probable where the most

absolute uncertainty prevails."

"Then you don't know who you are?" the Boy exclaimed, in a tone of deep

disgust due to baffled curiosity.

"I haven't the most remote idea," said the Tenor.

"I don't believe you."

"Boy, I have already told you that I will not have my word doubted."

"I know," said the Boy. "You are always autocratic. But I can't believe

you don't know who you are. It is incredible. You would never give

yourself such airs if you hadn't something to go upon. And, besides, you

command respect naturally, as well-bred people do. And you have all the

manner and bearing of a man accustomed to good society. You have the

accent, too, and all the rest of it. The difficulty in your case is to

believe in the actress. She was a very superior kind of actress, I

suspect. And, at any rate, you must have been brought up and educated by

somebody. Do tell me, Israfil. I am burning to know."

"Your curiosity is quite womanish, Boy."

"That is quite the right word," the Boy answered glibly. "Women are

generous and elevated, and 'a generous and elevated mind is distinguished

by nothing more certainly than an eminent curiosity.'"

The Tenor changed his position slightly, and, in doing so, absently laid

his hand on the Boy's head: "What queer dry hair you have," he said.

The Boy drew back resentfully. "I wish you wouldn't touch my hair," he

said. "I know it's nasty dry hair. It's a sore point with me. I think you

should respect it."

"I beg your pardon," the Tenor answered. "I really didn't know you were so

sensitive on the subject. But why on earth do you come so close? You put

that remarkable head of yours under my hand, and then growl at me for

touching it. And really it is a temptation. If I were a man of science

instead of a simple artist I should like to examine it inside and out."

The Boy put both hands up to his head and laughed, delighted as usual by

any jest at his own expense. He had moved his footstool back a little now,

and sat, stroking his upper lip thoughtfully, and looking at the Tenor.

There was a mischievous twinkle in his eyes, and he seemed to have

forgotten his desire to know the Tenor's secret history. "Why don't you

wear a moustache?" he said suddenly.

The Tenor looked at him lazily. "Well, I never did wear one," he said.

"But I could not in any case have worn one with a surplice."

The Boy nodded his head sagely. "I forgot," he said. "Of course that would

have been bad form. A parson is always vulgarized in appearance by wearing

a military moustache. The effect is as incongruous as a tail would be if

added to a figure with wings. But, tell me, do you think my moustache will

be the colour of my eyebrows when it comes?"

"Oh, Boy!" the Tenor exclaimed, "this is quite refreshing; especially from

you. You will be quite young in time if you go on."

The Boy grinned in his peculiar way, and then got up and began to walk

about the room. The Tenor thought from the expression of his face that he

was meditating mischief; but before he had time to put it into effect the

big bell boomed above them, striking the hour, and then came the chime.

The Boy hated the chime. He said it was flat; he said it was importunate,

like an ill-bred person; he said it mingled inopportunely with everything;

he declared it had a spite against him, and would do him an injury if it

could; when he was good he said it made him bad, and when he was bad it

made him worse. The Tenor had expected to hear him swear at it; but, oddly

enough, considering some of his aberrations, the Boy never swore. His

ideas were occasionally shocking, but, with the exception of certain

_boyishnesses_, in the expression of them he was a purist.

He went off now, however, anathematizing the chime, and the Tenor was

almost glad to get rid of him. The Boy's superabundant vitality alone was

fatiguing, and when he added, as he often did, a certain something of

manner to it which was perplexing and irritating in the extreme, he left

the Tenor not only fatigued, but jarred all over. Yet he spent the

interval which usually elapsed before the Boy returned in making excuses

for him, and also in making preparations.

CHAPTER X.

The Tenor was obliged to leave the window of his sitting room which looked

out on the little grass plot in front of his house and the cathedral

opposite, open always now, rain, blow, or snow, for the convenience of the

Boy. The latter had changed, his mind about forcing an entrance. If the

Tenor, he said, would not make it quite evident that he wanted him by

leaving the window open so that he could come in his own way whenever he

chose, he should not come at all. The window was his way; and on one

occasion when he had found it shut he had gone home, intending, as he

afterward declared, never to return; but he had changed his mind and

reappeared after an unusually long interval, when the Tenor, to use the

Boy's own phrase, "caught it" for his want of hospitality. Of course, he

acknowledged, he might have come in by the door, or he might have knocked

at the window; but then he did not choose to come in by the door or knock

at the window, so that was all about it. If the Tenor wanted to see him he

knew how to make him feel he was welcome, and so on until, for the sake of

peace and quietness, the Tenor was again obliged to yield.

Oh, the moods of that terrible Boy! No two the same and none to be relied

on! Sometimes he was like a wild creature, there was no holding him, no

knowing what he would do next; and the Tenor used to tremble lest he

should carry out one of his impossible threats, among which serenading the

dean, upsetting the chime, climbing the cathedral spire on the outside, or

throwing stones at the stained-glass saints in the great west window, were

intentions so often expressed that there seemed some likelihood of one or

other of them being eventually put into execution. Then again he would

saunter in about midnight, and sit down in a dejected attitude, looking

unutterably miserable; he would hardly answer when the Tenor spoke to him,

and if he did not speak he resented it; neither would he eat, nor drink,

nor make music, and if the Tenor sang he sometimes burst into tears.

On other occasions he was the most commonplace creature imaginable. He

would talk about a book he had been reading, a new picture his "people"

had bought, the society in the neighbourhood; anything, in fact, to which

the Tenor would listen, and the latter was often astonished by the

acuteness of his perceptions, and the worldly wisdom of his conclusions.

The Tenor made every allowance for these changes of mood, which, if they

were trying at times--and certainly they were trying--were interesting

also and amusing. He knew what an affliction the sensitive, nervous,

artistic temperament is; what a power of suffering it hides beneath the

more superficial power to be pleased; and he pitied the Boy, who was an

artist in every sense. He also thought there had been mistakes made in his

education.

"Did you ever go to a public school, Boy?" he asked one night.

"Well, no," the Boy rejoined. "I had the advantage of being educated with

Angelica. They kindly allowed me to share her tutor. I was thrown in, you

understand, just to fill up his time. And that is how it is I am so

refined and cultivated."

"But seriously?" said the Tenor.

The Boy raised his eyebrows. "Seriously?" he repeated. "But do you think

it delicate to question me so closely? Ah, I see, poor fellow! You don't

know any better. But really your curiosity is quite womanish. I will tell

you, however. I had the misfortune to sever my femoral artery when I was a

brat, and, although it seems to have come quite right now, it was not

thought advisable for me to rough it at a public school."

"But why on earth are they putting you in the army?" the Tenor asked.

"You mean I am much too pretty?" said the Boy, "not to mention my brains

and manners. Well, there I must agree with you. It does seem a sad waste

of valuable material. But it is only to fill up an interval. I shall be

put into a permanent billet of another kind eventually, whether I like it

or not."

"You mean you will be put into the earth to enrich it, I suppose?"

"Well, no. I was not so smart," said the Boy. "Now, that is rather a good

one for you. Oh, I suspect, if I could plumb your depth, I should find

myself but a simple, shallow child in comparison. No; what I meant was

that eventually a certain amount of earth would come to me to enrich me."

"But what does your father think about this military manoeuvre?"

"My father _think!_" roared the Boy. "O Lord! you don't know my

father!" and he fairly curled himself up in convulsions of silent

laughter, which the Tenor thought unseemly considering the subject of it,

but he said no more. He knew that there was nothing to be done with such a

boy but to wait and hope; and that was the attitude into which the Tenor

found himself most prone to fall in these days with regard to things in

general; being greatly cheered meanwhile by the sight of his lovely lady,

who smiled at him now without doubt, and was seldom absent from her

accustomed seat in the Canon's pew when he sang.

The Tenor looked better now, and more out of place than ever in the choir--

better, that is to say, in the sense of being more attractive; but he was

not looking strong, and the common faces about him seemed commoner still

when contrasted with the exceptional refinement of his own. The constant

self-denial he had been obliged to exercise in order to indulge the

fancies of that rapacious Boy, although a pleasure in itself, was

beginning to tell upon him. His features had sharpened a little, his skin

was transparent to a fault, and the brightness of his yellow hair, if it

added to the quite peculiar beauty, added something also to the too great

delicacy of his face. It was the brightness of his hair that suggested

such names for him as "Balder the Beautiful" and "Son of the Morning" to

the Boy, who invariably called him by some such fanciful appellation.

It was at this time, too, that a great painter came to Morningquest and

painted a picture called "_Music_," the interest of which centred in

the Tenor himself singing, while Angelica gazed at him as if she were

spell-bound.

The Boy used to describe this picture to the Tenor while it was in

progress, but the latter, listening in his dreamy way, was under the

impression for some time that the work was one of his young friend's own

imagination only. By degrees, however, it dawned upon him that the picture

was an actual fact, and then he was displeased. He thought that the artist

had taken a liberty with regard to himself, and been guilty of an

impertinence so far as his lovely lady was concerned.

"Well, so I told him," said the Boy. "But you know, dear Israfil, that in

the interests of art as well as in the interests of science, men are

carried away to such an extent that they sometimes forget to be

scrupulous. It is curious," he broke off, gazing at the Tenor critically,

"that Angelica should specially admire your chin. It is your mouth that

appeals to me. You have a regular Rossitti-Burne-Jones-Dante's-Dream-and-

Blessed-Damosel kind of mouth, with full firm lips. I should think you're

the sort of fellow that women would like to kiss. Don't try to look as

if you wouldn't kiss a woman just once in a way, dear old chap! Women

hate men like priests, who mustn't kiss them if they would; and they have

no respect for other men who wouldn't kiss them if they could. I know

Angelica hasn't!"

The last words were delivered from outside in the garden after the Boy had

made his escape through the window.

CHAPTER XI.

How long the Tenor's dream would have remained unbroken by action it is

hard to say. His want of personal ambition, his perfect serenity of mind,

and his thankfulness for a state of things so much more blissful than

anything he had ever expected to fall to his lot again; the languid summer

weather, and his affectionate anxiety for the Boy, all combined to keep

him in Morningquest, and to keep his indefinite plans for the future still

in abeyance.

Other people, however, were not so apathetic. The dean's friendly

remonstrances had been redoubled of late; the Boy had become importunate;

and even the mild musicians of Morningquest, whose boast it was to have

that bright particular star in their own little firmament, ventured to

hint respectfully that he was not doing his duty by himself. All this

kindly interest in his future career was not without its effect upon him,

and if it did not actually rouse him to act, it put him in the mood to be

aroused.

He was sitting alone one evening in his accustomed seat, beside the

fireplace, or rather beside the bank of ferns and flowering plants which

he had arranged before the fireplace so as to hide it, at the instigation

of the Boy. A shaded lamp stood on a table behind him, throwing its

softened light from over his shoulder on to the big book which lay open on

his knee. But he was not reading. He had placed his hands upon the book,

and was resting his head on the back of the chair. His yellow hair seemed

to shine out of the surrounding gloom with a light of its own; but his

face was in shadow.

The window at the further end of the room behind him was shut, and the

creepers outside brushed gently against it, tapping now and then, and

keeping up a continual soft rustle and murmur of leaves, like friendly

voices, soothing insensibly.

The other window was open as usual, and as he sat now he could see the old

cathedral opposite towering above him. It was a bright moonlight night;

the shadows were strong, and the details of the facade, flying buttress,

gargoyle and cornice, with a glimpse of the apse and spire, were all

distinct. But as the Tenor thoughtfully perused them, the whole fabric

suddenly disappeared from view, blotted out by an opaque body round which

the moonlight showed like a rim of silver, tracing in outline the slender

figure of the Boy. The Tenor had forgotten him for once, and was startled

from his reverie by the unexpected apparition; but he did not alter his

position or make any sign. The Boy preferred to come and go like that,

ungreeted and unquestioned, and the Tenor of course humoured this harmless

peculiarity with the rest.

The Boy sauntered in now in a casual way, arranged his hair at a mirror,

threw himself into an armchair, leant back, crossed his legs, folded both

hands on his hat, which lie held on his knee, and looked at the Tenor

lazily.

In the little pause that followed, the Tenor glanced at his book again,

and then he closed it.

"Israfil," the Boy said suddenly, leaning forward to look at the book, as

if to make sure, and speaking in an awestruck voice--"is that the

_Bible_ you were reading?"

Any evidence of the Tenor's simple piety, which was neither concealed nor

displayed, because it was in no way affected but quite natural to him, and

he was, therefore, unconscious of it, had a peculiar effect upon the Boy.

It seemed to shock him. But whether it made him feel ashamed or not, it is

impossible to say. Sometimes, the first effect over, he would remain

thoughtful, as if subdued by it; but at others it appeared to have

irritated him, and made him aggressively cynical.

To-night he was all subdued.

"You believe it, Israfil, don't you?" he said. "'He watching' is a fact

for you?"

The Tenor did not answer, except by folding his hands upon his book again,

and looking at the Boy.

"Now, _I_ don't believe a word of it," the latter pursued, "but it

makes me feel. I have my moments. The Bible is a wonderful book. I open it

sometimes, and read it haphazard. I did last night, and came upon--oh,

Israfil, the grand simplicity of it all! the wonderful solemn earnestness!

It brought me to my knees, and made me hold up my hands; but I could not

pray. I heard the chime, though, that night. It sounded insistent. It

seemed to assert itself in a new way. It was as if it spoke to me alone,

and I felt a strange sense of something pending--something for which I

shall have to answer. 'He watching.' Yes. I feel all that.

But"--dejectedly--"one feels so much more than one knows; and when I want

to know, I am never satisfied. Trying to find the little we know amongst

the lot that we feel is a veritable search for mignonette seeds in sand."

The Tenor continued silent and thoughtful for a time. "But do you never

pray, dear Boy?" he said at last.

The Boy shook his head.

"_Did_ you never?"

"Oh, yes,"--more cheerfully. "I used to believe in all the bogies at one

time."

"I am afraid you have been brought under some bad influence, then. Tell

me, who was it?"

"Angelica," said the boy.

"Oh, Boy! your sister!"

"Ah, you don't know that young lady!" the Boy rejoined, with his cynical

chuckle. "She is very fascinating, I allow; but always, in her

conversation, 'the serpent hisses where the sweet bird sings.'"

The Tenor toyed with the cover of his book, and was silent.

After a time the Boy spoke diffidently. "But do _you_ pray, Israfil?"

he asked.

"Yes," the Tenor answered. "I try to make prayer the attitude of my mind

always--I mean I try to be, and to do, and to think nothing that I could

not make a subject of prayer at any time. But I do not think that a direct

petition is the only or best way to pray. It seems to me that it is in a

certain attitude of mind we find the highest form of prayer, a reverential

attitude toward all things good and beautiful, by which we attain to an

inexpressible tenderness, that enemy of evil emotions, and also to rest

and peace and a great deep solemn joy which is permanent."

"I don't think I ever knew a man before who prayed regularly," the Boy

observed thoughtfully, rising as he spoke, and standing with his hat on:

"except the clergy, I suppose. But then that is their profession, and so

one thinks nothing of it. But I wonder if many men of the world pray? I

suppose they have to give up everything that makes life pleasant before

they can conscientiously begin."

"Far from it," said the Tenor, smiling. "But you are going early! Aren't

you hungry?"

The Boy grinned as if the insinuation were flattering. "No, I am not

hungry," he answered. "I dined at home to-night for a wonder, and when I

do that I don't generally want any more for some time. By home I mean at

my grandad's, where they always have seven or eight courses, and I can't

resist any of them. I lose my self respect, but satisfy my voracity, which

has the effect of improving the greediness out of my mind. But I am in a

hurry this evening, and I have already outstayed my time. I only came in

for a moment to ask you if you are to sing to-morrow?"

The Tenor nodded.

"In that case I am to beg you for 'Waft her, Angels.' Angelica ventures to

make the request. Good-night!"

The words were scarcely spoken, and his flying footsteps were still

audible as he ran lightly up the Close, when the cathedral clock began to

strike. There was only one emphatic throb of the iron tongue, followed by

a long reverberation, and then came the chime.

The Tenor, who had risen, stood listening, with upturned face, until the

end.

But the chime failed of its effect for once. There was something weary and

enigmatical in the old worn strain. Hitherto, it had always been a comfort

and an assurance to him, but to-night, for the first time, it was fraught

with some portentous meaning. Was there any cause for alarm in what was

happening? any reason for fear that should make it merciful to prepare him

with migivings? It was no new thing for the Tenor to be asked to sing

something special, and he tried to think such a request, although it came

from Angelica--if indeed it came from her, and was not a fabrication of

the Boy's--was a whim as trifling as the rest. But even if it were,

trifles, as all the world knows, are not to be despised. Someone has said

already that they made up the sum of life, and it may also be observed

that the hand of death is weighted by them.

CHAPTER XII.

The Tenor happened to be entering the cathedral next day for the afternoon

service just as Angelica was being handed from a carriage by a singular

looking man who wore _pince-nez_, was clean shaven, and had an

immense head of hair. Angelica very evidently called the attention of this

gentleman to the Tenor as he passed, and the latter heard the "Ach!" of

satisfaction to which the stranger gave utterance when he had adjusted his

_pince-nez_ with undisguised interest, and taken the Tenor in.

The latter felt that he had seen the man before, and while he was putting

on his surplice he remembered who he was, an _impresario_, well-known

by sight to regular opera goers and musicians generally. Having

established his identity, the reason of his presence there that afternoon

was at once apparent. The Tenor had been requested to sing a solo which

was admirably calculated to display the range and flexibility of his voice

to the best advantage, and the _impresario_ had been brought to hear

him. The mountain had come to Mahomet.

The Tenor never sang better than upon that occasion, and he had scarcely

reached his cottage after the service was over, when the _impresario_

burst in upon him, having, in his eagerness, omitted the ceremony of

knocking. He seized the Tenor's hand, exclaiming in broken English:--"Oh,

my tear froind, you are an ideal!" Then he flung his hat on the floor, and

curvetted about the room, alternately rubbing his hands and running his

fingers upward through his luxuriant hair till it stood on end all over

his head. "And have I found you?" he cried sentimentally, apostrophising

the ceiling. "Oh, have I found you? What a _Lohengrin!_ Ach Gott! it

is the prince himself. Boat"--and he stopped prancing in order to point

his long forefinger at the Tenor's chest--"boat you are an actor born, my

froind! You was the _Prince of Devotion_ himself jus' now. You do

that part as if you feel him too! Why"--jerking his head towards the

cathedral with a gesture which signified that if he had not seen the thing

himself he never could have believed it--"why, you loose yourself in there

kompletely!" Then he asked the Tenor to sing again, which the Tenor did,

being careful, however, not to give his excitable visitor too much lest

the intoxicating draught should bring on a fit.

The music-mad-one had come to make the Tenor golden offers, and he did not

leave him now until the Tenor had agreed to accept them.

The dean came in by chance in time to witness the conclusion of the

bargain, adding by his congratulations and good wishes to the Tenor's own

belief that such an opportunity was not to be lost. The drawings the Tenor

had been doing for the dean were all but finished now, and it was arranged

that the Tenor should enter upon his new engagement in one month's time.

When he found himself alone at last and could think the matter over, he

was thoroughly content with what he had done. There could be no doubt now

as to whose wish it was that he should go and make a name for himself; and

he felt sure that the step he was about to take would not lead to the

separation he dreaded, but rather to the union for which he might at last

without presumption; after such encouragement, venture to hope.

CHAPTER XIII.

A few nights after the Tenor had signed the agreement the Boy burst in

upon him, exclaiming in guttural accents: "Oh, my tear froind! have I

found you?" Then he threw his hat on the floor and began to prance up and

down, waving his hands ecstatically.

The Tenor picked up a cushion and threw it at him. "You wretched Boy!" he

said laughing. "Who told you he did that?"

"Oh, my _dear_ Israfil!" the Boy replied. "Why on earth do you ask

who _told_ me? You must know by this time, and if you don't you

should, that genius does not require to be told. Given the man and the

circumstances, and we'll tell you exactly what he'll do, don't you know,"

and the Boy showed his teeth.