music under his nose.
With both weapons once more levelled, he consulted the programme now.

"The next item, ladies and gentlemen," said he, "is another pianoforte
solo by this young lady. We'll let you off that, Miss Bouverie, since
you've got to sing. The next song on the programme is called 'The
Unrealized Ideal,' and the music is by our distinguished visitor and
patron, Sir Julian Crum. In happier circumstances it would have been
sung to you by Mrs. Montgomery Clarkson; as it is, I call upon Miss
Bouverie to realize her ideal and ours, and on Sir Julian Crum to
accompany her, if he will."

At Mrs. Clarkson's stony side the great man dropped both arms at the
superb impudence of the invitation.

"Quite right, Sir Julian; let the blood run into them," said Stingaree.
"It is a pure oversight that you were not exempted in the beginning.
Comply with my entreaty and I guarantee that you shall suffer no further
inconvenience."

Sir Julian wavered. In London he was a club-man and a diner-out; and
what a tale for the Athenaeum--what a short cut to every ear at a
Kensington dinner-table! In the end it would get into the papers. That
was the worst of it. But in the midst of Sir Julian's hesitation his
pondering eyes met those of Miss Bouverie--on fire to sing him his own
song--alight with the ability to do it justice. And Sir Julian was lost.

How she sang it may be guessed. Sir Julian bowed and swayed upon his
stool. Stingaree stood by with a smile of personal pride and
responsibility, but with both revolvers still levelled, and one of them
cocked. It was a better song than he had supposed. It gained enormously
from the composer's accompaniment. The last verse was softer than
another would have made it, and yet the singer obeyed inaudible
instructions as though she had never sung it otherwise. It was more in a
tuneful whisper than in hushed notes that the last words left her
lips:--

"Lightly I sped when hope was high,
And youth beguiled the chase;
I follow--follow still; but I
Shall never see her Face."

The applause, when it came, was almost overwhelming. The bushranger
watched and smiled, but cocked his second pistol, and let the programme
flutter to the floor. As for Sir Julian Crum, the self-contained, the
cynical, he was seen for an instant, wheeled about on the music-stool,
grasping the singer by both hands. But there was no hearing what he
said; the girl herself heard nothing until he bel