but moving shadows talking
through a choking cloud; and Master Will Shakspere's famous new piece of
"Romeo and Juliet," which had been playing to crowded houses, taking ten
pound twelve the day, was fairly smothered off the boards. Nick was
eager to be out in all this blindman's holiday; but, "Nay," said Carew;
"not so much as thy nose. A fog like this would steal the croak from a
raven's throat, let alone the sweetness from a honey-pot like thine--and
bottom crust is the end of pie!" With which, bang went the door, creak
went the key, and Carew was off to the Falcon Inn.

* * * * *

So went the winter weather, and so went Carew; for there was no denying
that both had fallen into a very bad way. Yet another change came
creeping over Carew all unaware.

Nick's face had from the first attracted him; and now, living with the
boy day after day, housed up, a prisoner, yet cheerful through it all,
the master-player began to feel what in a better man had been the prick
of conscience, but in him was only an indefinite uneasiness like a
blunted cockle-bur. For the lad's patient perseverance at his work, his
delight in singing, and the tone of longing threaded through his voice,
crept into the master-player's heart in spite of him; and Nick's gentle
ways with Cicely touched him more than all the rest: for if there was
one thing in all the world that Gaston Carew truly loved, it was his
daughter Cicely. So for her sake, as well as for Nick's own, the
master-player came to love the lad. And this was shown in queer ways.

In the wainscot of the dining-hall there was a carven panel just above
the Spanish chest. At night, when the house was still and all the rest
asleep, Carew often came and stood before this panel, with a queer,
hesitating look upon his hard, bold face; and stretching out his hand,
would press upon the head of a cherub cut in the bevel edge. Whereupon
the panel slipped away within the wainscot, leaving a little closet in
the hollow of the wall, in which a few strange things were stowed: an
empty flask, an inlaid rosewood box, a little slipper, and a dusty
gittern with its strings all snapped and a faded ribbon tied about
its neck.

The rosewood box he would take down, and with it open in his lap would
sit beside the fire like a man within a dream, until the hearth grew
white and cold, and the draught had blown the ashes out in streaks
across the floor. In the box was a woman's rid