an was singing in his boat. The sky was an
apocalypse of glory and peace.

The Doctor sighed and watched the pageant of light until it faded and
the stars lit up the magical blue darkness. Then out of the night came
another song--a song which seemed familiar to the Doctor, although for
the moment he could not place it, about a King in the Northern Country
who was faithful to the grave and to whom his dying mistress a golden
beaker gave.

"Strange," thought the Doctor, "it must come from some Northern fishing
smack," and he went home.

He sat reading in his study until midnight, and for the first time in
thirty years he could not fix his mind on his book. For the vision
of the sunset and the song of the Northern fisherman, which in some
unaccountable way brought back to him the days of his youth, kept on
surging up in his mind.

Twelve o'clock struck. He rose to go to bed, and as he did so he heard a
loud knock at the door.

"Come in," said the Doctor, but his voice faltered ("the Cyprus wine
again!" he thought), and his heart beat loudly.

The door opened and an icy draught blew into the room. The visitor
beckoned, but spoke no word, and Doctor Faust rose and followed him into
the outer darkness.

THE FLUTE-PLAYER'S STORY

There is a village in the South of England not far from the sea, which
possesses a curious inn called "The Green Tower." Why it is called thus,
nobody knows. This inn must in days gone by have been the dwelling
of some well-to-do squire, but nothing now remains of its former
prosperity, except the square grey tower, partially covered with ivy,
from which it takes its name. The inn stands on the roadside, on the
brow of a hill, and at the top of the tower there is a room with four
large windows, whence you can see all over the wooded country. The
ex-Prime Minister of a foreign state, who had been driven from office
and home by a revolution, happening to pass the night in the inn and
being of an eccentric disposition, was so much struck with this room
that he secured it, together with two bedrooms, permanently for himself.
He determined to spend the rest of his life here, and as he was within
certain limits not unsociable, he invited his friends to come and stay
with him on any Saturday they pleased, without giving him notice.

Thus it happened that of a Saturday and Sunday there was nearly always
a mixed gathering of men at "The Green Tower", and after they had dined
they would sit in