He could vaguely trace by
these the outlines of some sort of picture on the window. There were
human figures in it, and--yes--up here in the centre, nearest him, was a
woman's head. There was a halo about it, engirdling rich, flowing waves
of reddish hair, the lights in which glowed like flame. The face itself
was barely distinguishable, but its half-suggested form raised a curious
sense of resemblance to some other face. He looked at it closely,
blankly, the noble music throbbing through his brain meanwhile.

"It's that Madden girl!" he suddenly heard a voice say by his side. Dr.
Ledsmar had followed him to the window, and was close at his shoulder.

Theron's thoughts were upon the puzzling shadowed lineaments on the
stained glass. He saw now in a flash the resemblance which had baffled
him. "It IS like her, of course," he said.

"Yes, unfortunately, it IS just like her," replied the doctor, with a
hostile note in his voice. "Whenever I am dining here, she always goes
in and kicks up that racket. She knows I hate it."

"Oh, you mean that it is she who is playing," remarked Theron. "I
thought you referred to--at least--I was thinking of--"

His sentence died off in inconsequence. He had a feeling that he did not
want to talk with the doctor about the stained-glass likeness. The music
had sunk away now into fragmentary and unconnected passages, broken here
and there by abrupt stops. Dr. Ledsmar stretched an arm out past him and
shut the window. "Let's hear as little of the row as we can," he said,
and the two went back to their chairs.

"Pardon me for the question," the Rev. Mr. Ware said, after a pause
which began to affect him as constrained, "but something you said about
dining--you don't live here, then? In the house, I mean?"

The doctor laughed--a characteristically abrupt, dry little laugh, which
struck Theron at once as bearing a sort of black-sheep relationship
to the priest's habitual chuckle. "That must have been puzzling you no
end," he said--"that notion that the pastorate kept a devil's advocate
on the premises. No, Mr. Ware, I don't live here. I inhabit a house
of my own--you may have seen it--an old-fashioned place up beyond the
race-course, with a sort of tower at the back, and a big garden. But I
dine here three or four times a week. It is an old arrangement of ours.
Vincent and I have been friends for many years now. We are quite alone
in the world, we two--much to our mutual satisfaction. You mu