ar distinction between the joyous airs and the sombre: all were
wrought and mingled into an exciting and bewildering atmosphere of
melody, which thrilled the heart and maddened the brain. But as the
music continued, its joyous strains died out; the instrument cried aloud
in horror and pain, as if the vulture of Prometheus were tearing at its
vitals; darkness seemed to descend upon the room--a darkness alive with
the sighs and groans, the disillusions and tears, of lost souls. The men
sat transfixed with agony and dread, the women were caught in the wild
clutches of hysteria, and Courtney himself was as if possessed with a
frenzy: his features were rigid, his eyes dilated, and his hair rose and
clung in wavy locks, so that he seemed a very Gorgon's head. The only
person apparently unmoved was old Dr Rippon, whose pale, gaunt form rose
in the background, sinister and calm as Death!

The situation was at its height, when a black cat (a pet of Miss
Lefevre's) suddenly leaped on the top of the piano with a canary in its
mouth, and in the presence of them all, laid its captive before Julius
Courtney. The music ceased with a dissonant crash. With a cry Julius
rose and laid his hand on the cat's neck: to the general amazement the
cat lay down limp and senseless, and the little golden bird fluttered
away. Then the sobs of the women, hitherto controlled, broke out, and
the murmurs of the men.

"O Julius! Julius! what have you done?" cried Nora, sweeping up to him
in an ecstasy of emotion.

He caught her in his arms, when with a strange cry--a strained kind of
laugh with a hysterical catch in it--she sank fainting on his breast.
With a sharp exclamation of pain and fear he bore her swiftly from the
room (he was near the door) and into a little conservatory that opened
upon the staircase, casting his eyes upon Lefevre as he went, and
saying, "Come! come quick!" Lefevre then woke to the fact that he had
been fixedly regarding this last strange scene, while Lady Mary clung
trembling to his arm. He hurried out after Julius, followed by Lady Mary
and his mother.

"Take her!" cried Julius, standing away from Nora, and looking white and
terror-stricken. "Restore her! Oh, I must not!--I dare not touch her!"

With nimble accustomed fingers Lady Mary undid Nora's dress, while the
doctor applied the remedies usual in hysterical fainting. Nora opened
her eyes and fixed them upon Julius.

"O Julius, Julius!" she cried. "Do not leave me!