ar set out again. This time the dramatist was ready to:
receive him.

'The lady who will sing the songs is here,' he said, 'and with your
permission I will ask her to try them over now. Will you come with me?'

'I would rather await you here,' said Christopher. The tunes he had
written were running riot in his head, and he thought them puerile,
vulgar, shameful. He would have torn the papers on which they were
written if he had not already surrendered them. He had liked them an
hour ago, and now he thought them detestable.

'As you please,' said the dramatist, and added 'poor beggar!' inwardly
as he went upstairs.

The composer sat in a sick half-dream and faintly heard a piano sounding
in a distant room. It played the prelude of one of his songs. Now
and then the sound of a female voice just touched his ears. He was
so fatigued and weak that, in spite of his anxiety, he glided into a
troubled doze in which he dreamed of Barbara. The dramatist returned,
and Christopher came back to the daylight at the sound of the opening
door.

'Mademoiselle Helene and myself,' said Mr. Holt, 'are alike delighted
with your setting of the songs. I shall ask you, Mr. Stretton, to read
my comedy and to write the whole of the incidental music, if you will
accept the commission. We can talk over terms afterwards. In the mean
time, shall I offer you a cheque for ten guineas?'

'Thank you,' said Christopher. He took the cheque and walked to the
bank, which was near at hand in Pall Mall, received his money, and
plunged into an eating-house, whence he emerged intoxicated by the
absorption of a cup of coffee and a steak. If you doubt the physical
accuracy of that statement, pray reduce yourself to Christopher's
condition and try the experiment. You are respectfully assured that you
will doubt no longer.

CHAPTER III.

Christopher wrote the incidental music for the new comedy and composed
an overture and entr'actes for it--work for which he was paid pretty
liberally. He wrote to Barbara of his better fortunes, and promised to
run down and see her so soon as the business strain was over. But the
business strain was over and he did not go. He finished his music,
rehearsed it once with the orchestra of the Garrick Theatre, and then
fell ill of a low fever through which Rubach most kindly nursed him. The
Bohemian himself was busy, rehearsing half the day and playing at the
theatre at night, but he gave all his spare time to his friend