me ecstasy; only, on Alice's face it was more
luminous, more conscious, and at the same time more abandoned, as if
all subterfuge had ceased in her and she gave herself up, willing and
exulting, to the unspiritual sense that flooded her.

On the man's face this look was more confused. It was also more tender
and more poignant, as if in soaring Jim's rapture gave him pain. You
would have said that he had not given himself to it, but that he was
driven by it, and that yet, with all its sensuous trouble, there
ran through it, secret and profoundly pure, some strain of spiritual
longing.

And in his thick, his poignant and tender half-barytone, half-tenor,
Greatorex sang:

"'At e-ee-vening e-er the soon was set,
The sick, oh Lo-ord, arou-ound thee laay--
Oh, with what divers pains they met,
And with what joy they went a-waay--'"

But Alice stopped playing and Rowcliffe heard her say, "Don't let's
have that one, Jim, I don't like it."

It might have passed--even the name--but that Rowcliffe saw Greatorex
put his hand on Alice's head and stroke her hair.

Then he heard him say, "Let's 'ave mine," and he saw that his hand was
on Alice's shoulders as he leaned over her to find the hymn.

"Good God!" said Rowcliffe to himself. "That explains it."

He got up softly. Now that he knew, he felt that it was horrible to
spy on her.

But Greatorex had begun singing again, and the sheer beauty of the
voice held Rowcliffe there to listen.

"'Lead--Kindly Light--amidst th' encircling gloo-oom,
Lead Thou me o-on.
Keep--Thou--my--feet--I do not aa-aassk too-oo see-ee-ee
Ther di-is-ta-aant scene, woon step enoo-oof for mee-eea.'"

Greatorex was singing like an angel. And as he sang it was as if two
passions, two longings, the earthly and the heavenly, met and
mingled in him, so that through all its emotion his face remained
incongruously mystic, queerly visionary.

"'O'er moor and fen--o'er crag and torrent ti-ill----'"

The evocation was intolerable to Rowcliffe.

He turned away and Greatorex's voice went after him.

"'And--with--the--morn tho-ose angel fa-a-ce-es smile
Which I-i--a-ave looved--long since--and lo-ost awhi-ile.'"

Again Rowcliffe turned; but not before he had seen that Greatorex had
his hand on Alice's shoulder a second time, and that Alice's hand had
gone up and found it there.

The latch of the west door jerked under Rowcliffe's hand with a loud
clashing. Alice and Grea