the corruption of his body,
longing to destroy the ruined temple, longing to speak and say, "I am in
prison, but do not judge of the prisoner by examining the filthiness of
his cell."

As Lady Holme took in the audience with a glance there was a rustle
of paper. Almost everyone was looking to see if the programme had been
altered. Lady Holme saw that suddenly Fritz had realised the change that
had been made, and what it meant. An expression of anger came into his
face.

She felt that she saw more swiftly, and saw into more profoundly to-day
than ever before in her life; that she had a strangely clear vision of
minds as well as of faces, that she was vivid, penetrating. And she
had time, before she began to sing, for an odd thought of the person
drowning who flashes back over the ways of his past, who is, as it were,
allowed one instant of exceptional life before he is handed over to
death. This thought was clear, clean cut in her mind for a moment, and
she put herself in the sounding arms of the sea.

Then the pianist began his prelude, and she moved a step forward to the
flowers and opened her lips to sing.

She sang by heart the little story drawn from the writing of Jalalu'd
dinu'r Rumi. The poet who had taken it had made a charming poem of it,
delicate, fragile, and yet dramatic and touched with fervour, porcelain
with firelight gleaming on it here and there. Lady Holme had usually a
power of identifying herself thoroughly with what she was singing, of
concentrating herself with ease upon it, and so compelling her hearers
to be concentrated upon her subject and upon her. To-day she was deeper
down in words and music, in the little drama of them, than ever before.
She was the man who knocked at the door, the loved one who cried from
within the house. She gave the reply, "_C'est moi_!" with the eagerness
of that most eager of all things--Hope. Then, as she sang gravely, with
tender rebuke, "This house cannot shelter us both together," she was
in the heart of love, that place of understanding. Afterwards, as one
carried by Fate through the sky, she was the man set down in a desert
place, fasting, praying, educating himself to be more worthy of love.
Then came the return, the question, "_Qui est la_?" the reply;--reply
of the solitary place, the denied desire, the longing to mount, the
educated heart--"_C'est toi_!" the swiftly-opening door, the rush of
feet that were welcome, of outstretched arms for which waited a