te and such formidable music, he could conquer the earth! His brain
was afire with the sweetness of the odour that enveloped them, an odour
as penetrating as the music of the nocturnal Chopin.

"Debora," he whispered, "you must never go away from me." She hung her
head. The old man was not to be seen; the darkness had swallowed him.
Ferval quietly passed his arm about the waist of the silent woman and
slowly they walked in the tender night. She was the first to speak:--

"You did not hear a madman's story," she asserted in her clear, candid
voice, which had for him the hue of a cleft pomegranate. "It is the
history of my father's soul. It is his own sin he expiates."

"But you, you!" Ferval cried unsteadily. "Why must your life be
sacrificed to gratify the bizarre egotism of such a--" He cut short the
phrase, fearful of wounding her. He felt her body tremble and her arm
contract. They reached the marble staircase of the Jeanne d'Arc
memorial. She stopped him and burst forth:--

"Would you be willing to share his burden? Would you take upon your
shoulders his sin? He may have committed the one unpardonable sin, for
he discovered the true philosopher's stone, that can transmute metals,
make mountains nod, the stars to stop, and command the throne of
Jehovah--oh, what blasphemy has been his in his daring music! If he
could persuade one other soul besides mine to help him, he might be
released from his woe. Will you be that other?"

She put this question as if she were proposing a commonplace human
undertaking. Ferval in his confusion fancied that she was provoking him
to a declaration. To grasp his receding reason he fatuously exclaimed:--

"Is this a Salvation Army fantasy?"

With that she called out, in harsh resentment:

"Not salvation for you!"

She then thrust him from her so violently that he tumbled backward down
the steps to the very bottom, where, unnerved by the ferocity of the
attack and his head bruised by the fall, he felt his consciousness
escape like gas from a punctured balloon. When found the next morning,
he was barely covered by the old sin-eater's rags, while near by was
scattered the entire orchestra of that eloquent wizard. Shudderingly he
realized that it had been no dream; shudderingly he wondered if upon his
soul had been shifted the unknown crime of the fanatic! The witching,
enigmatic Debora haunted his memory; and with dismay he recalled the
blistering vision evoked by the music, throug