, Raoul and Christine turned round at the same time:

"There is some one in pain," said Raoul. "Perhaps some one has been
hurt. Did you hear?"

"I can't say," Christine confessed. "Even when he is not there, my
ears are full of his sighs. Still, if you heard ..."

They stood up and looked around them. They were quite alone on the
immense lead roof. They sat down again and Raoul said:

"Tell me how you saw him first."

"I had heard him for three months without seeing him. The first time I
heard it, I thought, as you did, that that adorable voice was singing
in another room. I went out and looked everywhere; but, as you know,
Raoul, my dressing-room is very much by itself; and I could not find
the voice outside my room, whereas it went on steadily inside. And it
not only sang, but it spoke to me and answered my questions, like a
real man's voice, with this difference, that it was as beautiful as the
voice of an angel. I had never got the Angel of Music whom my poor
father had promised to send me as soon as he was dead. I really think
that Mamma Valerius was a little bit to blame. I told her about it;
and she at once said, 'It must be the Angel; at any rate, you can do no
harm by asking him.' I did so; and the man's voice replied that, yes,
it was the Angel's voice, the voice which I was expecting and which my
father had promised me. From that time onward, the voice and I became
great friends. It asked leave to give me lessons every day. I agreed
and never failed to keep the appointment which it gave me in my
dressing-room. You have no idea, though you have heard the voice, of
what those lessons were like."

"No, I have no idea," said Raoul. "What was your accompaniment?"

"We were accompanied by a music which I do not know: it was behind the
wall and wonderfully accurate. The voice seemed to understand mine
exactly, to know precisely where my father had left off teaching me.
In a few weeks' time, I hardly knew myself when I sang. I was even
frightened. I seemed to dread a sort of witchcraft behind it; but
Mamma Valerius reassured me. She said that she knew I was much too
simple a girl to give the devil a hold on me ... My progress, by the
voice's own order, was kept a secret between the voice, Mamma Valerius
and myself. It was a curious thing, but, outside the dressing-room, I
sang with my ordinary, every-day voice and nobody noticed anything. I
did all that the voice asked. It said, 'Wait