d harmonies he made. His thin cheeks
flushed, his hollow eyes grew bright, he smiled, he frowned, he shook
his slender shoulders, he even took a stride to right or left as he
played on, as if the passion of his performance would not let him rest.

His listeners watched him with sympathetic and comprehending interest.
Warmed and fed, his Latin nature leaping up from its deep depression to
the exaltation of the hour, the appeal he made to them was intensely
pathetic. Burns, even more ardently than his wife, responded to the
appeal. He no longer lounged among the pillows of the broad couch; he
sat erect, his eyes intent, his lips relaxed, his cares forgot. He was a
lover of music, as are many men of his profession, and he was more than
ordinarily susceptible to its influences. He drank in the tones of the
master, voiced by this devoted interpreter, like wine, and like wine
they brought the colour to his face also, and the light to his eyes.

"Jove!" he murmured, as the last note died away, "he's a wonder. He must
be older than he looks. How he loves it! He's forgotten that he doesn't
know where he's to sleep to-night--but, by all that's fair, _we_ know,
eh?"

Ellen smiled, with a look of assent. Her own heart was warmly touched.
There was a small bedroom upstairs, plainly but comfortably furnished,
which was often used for impecunious patients who needed to remain under
observation for a day or two. It was at the service of any chance guest,
and the chance guest was surely with them to-night. There was no place
in the village to which such a vagrant as this might be sent, except
the jail, and the jail, for a musician of such quality, was unthinkable.
And in the night and storm one would not turn a dog outdoors to hunt for
shelter--at least not Red Pepper Burns nor Ellen Burns, his wife.

As if he could not stop, now that he had found ears to listen, the young
Hungarian played on. More and more profoundly did his music move him,
until it seemed as if he had become the very spirit of the instrument
which sung and vibrated under his thin fingers.

"My word, Len, this is too good to keep all to ourselves. Let's have the
Macauleys and Chesters over. Then we'll have an excuse for paying the
chap a good sum for his work--and somehow I feel that we need an excuse
for such a gentleman as he is."

"That's just the thing. I'll ask them."

She was on her way to the telephone when her husband suddenly called
after her, "Wait a m