presence.

'You are passionately attached to Miss Allen,' said Carl.

'She is the only sweetheart I ever had, responded simple Christopher with shy merriment.

Rubach sat down at the piano and sang this song:—

'That is not your doctrine, mon ami,' he said as he turned round on the music-stool. 'You are faithful to Miss Allen?'

'I am faithful to Miss Allen, certainly,' said Christopher, reaching out his hand for the violin, and again chuckling weakly.

'No,' said Carl, rising and confiscating the fiddle. 'You shall sing her virtues to that tune no more. Write a new tune for her.'

Anybody who has been in love, and I do not care for any other sort of reader, may fancy for himself the peculiar enjoyment which shy Christopher extracted from this homely badinage.

Two or three days later he was almost reestablished, and had indeed begun to write a little. He would not yet go to the theatre, however, having some fear of the excitement. He sat alone in the sitting-room which he and his chum occupied in common, dreaming of Barbara over a book, and building cloud palaces. It was ten o'clock in the evening, and Carl would not be home till midnight. Then 'who was this dashing tumultuously up the stone steps after Carl's accustomed fashion? Carl himself, it seemed, but unlike himself, pale and breathless, and with an ugly scratch across his forehead which looked at first sight like a severe wound.

'What's the matter?' cried Christopher, rising hastily.

'I have had a fall,' said Carl. 'There is nothing to be alarmed at, but,' holding out his left hand, 'I have sprained my wrist and I cannot play.'

'How did it happen?' asked Christopher, following him into the bedroom, where Carl had already begun to twine a wet handkerchief round the injured wrist.

'I was crossing the stage between the acts,' said Carl; 'a plank had been moved, and I set my foot in the hole and fell—voilà tout I want to ask you to play for me. There is not a man in the band who can do justice to "When Love has flown." It will be no trouble to you. You will simply have to stand in the flies and play the air whilst a man on the stage appears to play it, sawing away with a soaped bow. Will you come?'

Christopher stood irresolute. 'They can do without me in the orchestra,' said Carl, 'but I have been playing your song as it deserves to be played. Mademoiselle Hélène looks forward to its being played so. It gives her aid, I know. The people look to hear it well played, and if you do not go it will be given to Jones—to Jones, Gott in Himmel! who plays as a mason cuts stone. Do come. It will cost you no trouble.'

Christopher took up his violin-case, long since extracted from My Uncle's maw, and followed Carl from the chambers into the street.

'You play only the first movement, very low and soft,' said Carl as they went along. 'I will stand by you and tell you when to begin.'

They entered the theatre—a terra incognita to Christopher—and found their way through a chaos of disused dusty scenery. A great burst of applause sounded through the unseen house.

'That is for Mademoiselle,' said Carl, 'We are just in time to get breath comfortably. Stay here. I will be with you directly.'

He left Christopher standing in the flies, looking on the stage. There were two or three people on the boards, but Christopher had not the key to their talk, and had little interest in them. By-and-by all but one left the stage. The light dwindled and faded. The sun-sets on the English stage are as rapid as in any tropic region. The player played his part. He was in love, and true as true could be, but the empress of his soul had her doubts about him. How could she doubt him? That was the burden of his speech as he sat at the table, and murmured the loved one's cruelty with a broken voice and his whole function suiting with forms to his conceit. It was almost dark when the first rays of the silver moon fell athwart the chamber. Christopher felt that the dead silence of the house betokened the coming of the crisis in the play, and he was strung to the expectation of something out of the common. Watching from his own dark standing-place, he could see the actor draw towards him a violin case, and he silently drew forth his own instrument to be in readiness. Whilst he waited and watched, Carl's stealthy footstep sounded behind him.

'You will see her in a minute or two,' whispered Carl. 'I will touch you once, when you shall make ready, and once when you shall begin.'

For half a minute or nearly, everything was still on the stage and in the house. Then the player's voice, passionate and low, broke again upon the silence, and in a second or two Carl touched Christopher upon the shoulder. There was a curiously crisp feeling in the-composer's nerves, and he was a little excited. He tucked his violin under his chin, and stood prepared. Into the definite band of moonlight which crossed the stage glided suddenly a white figure.

'Now,' whispered Carl, and touched the musician on the shoulder, and straight from the violin soared a voice, not soft and low, but clear and loud, and the air was 'Cruel Barbara Allen.' Carl fell back a step or two in his amazement. The white figure on the stage turned round, and for a moment peered into the darkness of the flies—then glided on again. The air once played, the composer cast his violin upon the stage beneath his feet and trampled it, hurled the bow from him, and with one cry, eloquent of agony and rage, turned and dashed past his companion, and, tumbling through the dark and unaccustomed ways, reached the street. Carl followed him and caught him up.

'What is it, Stretton? What is the matter?' he cried, and seized his friend by the arm. Christopher answered nothing, but hurried on like one distracted. 'He's mad,' said Carl within himself—'quite mad.'

They came together to their chambers, and Christopher sank into an arm-chair and moaned, unconscious of Carl's presence, 'Barbara! Barbara!'

'It is madness,' said Carl, tossing his hands tempestuously towards the ceiling, 'mere midsummer madness. Poor fellow! Stretton! Stretton! Listen to me! What is it? Don't you know me?'

For Christopher glared at him like one who had no knowledge of him, and then again hid his face within his hands.

'What on earth made you play that tune?' cried Carl.

'She was there, man! She was there!' groaned Christopher, rising and pacing the room with unequal steps.

'Who was there?' said Carl, almost as wildly.

'Barbara,' groaned Christopher again, 'Mademoiselle Hélène is Barbara Allen.'

'"Angels and ministers of grace defend us!"' murmured the theatrical Carl. 'I must humour him. Never mind, old man. Suppose she is! what does it matter?'

'Oh, Carl! Carl!' cried the other, turning upon him and gripping him by both shoulders. 'I never loved another woman, and I never can. I would have built my hopes of Heaven upon her truth.'

Carl began to think there was something in it.

'You mean that Mademoiselle Hélène is Miss Allen?'

'Yes, I said so.'

'And that you knew her?'

'We were sweethearts when we were children. We were engaged to be married two years ago. Would you believe it, Carl? would you believe it? I had a letter from her only this morning dated from the old place in the country. Think of the cunning perfidy