gain and again in a solemn, dreamy deepening of chords, which the
beautiful voice followed and answered with that certainty and ease which
belong to a few of the world's singers when they sing to the
accompaniment of one with whom they are in perfect musical and
sympathetic understanding. The music came to an end and the church seemed
doubly silent, with the painful stillness one sometimes feels when a song
is ended; it is almost the same sudden forlorn feeling as when a beloved
friend goes away, that sense of the departure of a beautiful presence, or
it may be that our souls have returned to earth after soaring towards
some beauteous mystic region. Wilhelmine passed up the nave, through a
small door in the side of the carven wooden screen, and up a dark and
narrow winding stair which led to the organ-loft. It was unusual to find
an organ even in a cathedral in those days, but a pious Duke of
Mecklemburg-Guestrow had given this one to the church as a thankoffering,
and had caused it to be built by the famous organ-makers of Venice.

The organist's face and figure commanded attention. Tall and spare, with
the scholar's stoop, a long narrow head broadening at the brow, a mass of
iron-grey hair,--a thin, eager face lit by almost colourless eyes, which
looked as though the blue of youth had been washed away by tears, or
faded by vigils and patient suffering. This was the individual whom the
townsfolk called the 'mad French schoolmaster, Monsieur Gabriel,' and
whose youth they whispered had been spent at the court of France, till
Madame de Maintenon had set his enemies upon him, and he, being proved a
heretic, had fled for his life across the frontier and wandered
northwards. The course of his wanderings brought him to Mecklemburg
where, hearing that the schoolmaster at Guestrow had died, he had sought
the post and it had been granted him, because of his proved learning and
his skill as a musician. This uneventful calling he had followed for many
years, and the people had ceased to wonder at his eccentricities, his
silence, and his friendlessness. The children loved him, and his school
became famous through the countryside, and on Sundays and feast days the
citizens flocked to hear his organ playing, and the performance of the
choir of youths and maidens he had trained to sing so well.

Pastor Mueller, according to his coarse nature, was jealous of him and
insolent to him, yet he feared the mild gaze of those faded eyes and t