Table, but failed in finding the
violin before the return of the boys. Not a word did she say all that
evening, and their oppressed hearts foreboded ill. They felt that there
was thunder in the clouds, a sleeping storm in the air; but how or when
it would break they had no idea.

Robert came home to dinner the next day a few minutes before Shargar. As
he entered his grandmother's parlour, a strange odour greeted his sense.
A moment more, and he stood rooted with horror, and his hair began to
rise on his head. His violin lay on its back on the fire, and a yellow
tongue of flame was licking the red lips of a hole in its belly. All
its strings were shrivelled up save one, which burst as he gazed. And
beside, stern as a Druidess, sat his grandmother in her chair, feeding
her eyes with grim satisfaction on the detestable sacrifice. At length
the rigidity of Robert's whole being relaxed in an involuntary howl
like that of a wild beast, and he turned and rushed from the house in a
helpless agony of horror. Where he was going he knew not, only a blind
instinct of modesty drove him to hide his passion from the eyes of men.

From her window Miss St. John saw him tearing like one demented along
the top walk of the captain's garden, and watched for his return. He
came far sooner than she expected.

Before he arrived at the factory, Robert began to hear strange sounds in
the desolate place. When he reached the upper floor, he found men with
axe and hammer destroying the old woodwork, breaking the old jennies,
pitching the balls of lead into baskets, and throwing the spools into
crates. Was there nothing but destruction in the world? There, most
horrible! his 'bonny leddy' dying of flames, and here, the temple of his
refuge torn to pieces by unhallowed hands! What could it mean? Was his
grandmother's vengeance here too? But he did not care. He only felt like
the dove sent from the ark, that there was no rest for the sole of his
foot, that there was no place to hide his head in his agony--that he was
naked to the universe; and like a heartless wild thing hunted till its
brain is of no more use, he turned and rushed back again upon his track.
At one end was the burning idol, at the other the desecrated temple.

No sooner had he entered the captain's garden than Miss St. John met
him.

'What is the matter with you, Robert?' she asked, kindly.

'Oh, mem!' gasped Robert, and burst into a very storm of weeping.

It was long before h