so will you if you are
wise."

"No. I will be back this evening, so let the fatted calf be
prepared. I must get out of this for a while."

"Where are you going?"

"Oh, anywhere. I don't care. Up the river, perhaps."

"You don't wish me to go with you?"

"No, I had rather be alone. Tom, I have been a fool. I led you into
a hole whence nothing but a marvellous chance has delivered us, and I
owe you an apology. And--Tom, I also owe you my life."

"Not to me, Jasper; to the Clasp."

"To you," I insisted. "Tom, I have been a thoughtless fool, and--
Tom, that was a splendid blow of yours."

He laughed, and ran upstairs, while I turned and gloomily sauntered
down the deserted street.

CHAPTER III.

TELLS AN OLD STORY IN THE TRADITIONAL MANNER.

When Tom asked me where I was going, I had suggested an excursion up
the river; though, to tell the truth, this answer had come with the
question. Be that as it may, the afternoon of that same Sunday found
me on the left bank of the Thames between Streatley and Pangbourne;
found me, with my boat moored idly by, stretched on my back amid the
undergrowth, and easefully staring upward through a trellis-work of
branches into the heavens. I had been lying there a full hour
wondering vaguely of my last night's adventure, listening to the
spring-time chorus of the birds, lazily and listlessly watching a
bough that bent and waved its fan of foliage across my face, or the
twinkle of the tireless kingfisher flashing down-stream in loops of
light, when a blackbird lit on a branch hard by my left hand, and,
all unconscious of an audience, began to pour forth his rapture to
the day.

Lying there I could spy his black body and yellow bill, and drink in
his song with dreamy content. So sweetly and delicately was he
fluting, that by degrees slumber crept gently and unperceived upon my
tired brain; and as the health-giving distillation of the melody
stole upon my parched senses, I fell into a deep sleep.

What was that? Music? Yes, but not the song of my friend the
black-bird, not the mellow note that had wooed me to slumber and
haunted my dreams. Music? Yes, but the voice was human, and the
song articulate. I started, and rose upon my elbow to listen.
The voice was human beyond a doubt--sweetly human: it was that of a
girl singing. But where? I looked around and saw nobody. Yet the
singer could not be far off, for the words, though softly and gently
sung, d