lk just a little with some girl on the old terms of equality! The
longing was not the less real, and even passionate, that it seemed to
Thorne himself to be utterly absurd. He mocked at himself as he walked
the streets for a couple of hours, and then went back when the concert
was just over and the people coming away. He watched till the girl
appeared. She looked a little tired, he fancied. As she came out into
the chill night air she drew a soft white cloak round her, and went
by, quite unconscious of the dark young man who stood near the door
and followed her with his eyes. The sombre apparition might have
startled her had she noticed it, though Percival was only gazing at
the ghost of his dead life, and, having seen it, disappeared into the
shadows once more.

"The night is darkest before the morn." In Percival's case this was
true, for the next day brought a new interest and hope. A letter came
from Godfrey Hammond, through which he glanced wearily till he came
to a paragraph about the Lisles: Hammond had seen a good deal of them
lately. "Their father treated you shamefully," he wrote, "but, after
all, it is harder still on his children." ("Good Heavens! Does he
suppose I have a grudge against them?" said Percival to himself, and
laughed with mingled irritation and amazement.) "Young Lisle wants a
situation as organist somewhere where he might give lessons and make
an income so, but we can't hear of anything suitable. People say the
boy is a musical genius, and will do wonders, but, for my part, I
doubt it. He may, however, and in that case there will be a line in
his biography to the effect that I 'was one of the first to discern,'
etc., which may be gratifying to me in my second childhood."

Percival laid the letter on the table and looked up with kindling
eyes.

Only a few minutes' walk from Bellevue street was St. Sylvester's, a
large district church. The building was a distinguished example of
cheap ecclesiastical work, with stripes and other pretty patterns
in different colored bricks, and varnished deal fittings and patent
corrugated roofing. All that could be done to stimulate devotion
by means of texts painted in red and blue had been done, and St.
Sylvester's, within and without, was one of those nineteenth-century
churches which will doubtless be studied with interest and wonder by
the architect of a future age if they can only contrive to stand up
till he comes. The incumbent was High Church, as a mat