t. Two years had passed since,
seeing her for the first time, I had hoped that she, perhaps, might
be the long-sought mystery. It had proved otherwise. On this night I
looked at her and listened to her for the sake of that bygone hope,
and applauded her generously when the curtain fell. But I went out
lonely still. When I had supped at a restaurant, I returned to my
hotel, and tried to read. In vain. The sound of feet in the corridors
as the other occupants of the hotel went to bed distracted my
attention from my book. Suddenly it occurred to to me that I had never
quite understood my uncle's character. He, father to a great flock of
poor and ignorant Irish; an austere and saintly man, to whom livers of
hopeless lives daily appealed for help heavenward; who was reputed
never to have sent away a troubled peasant without relieving him of
his burden by sharing it; whose knees were worn less by the altar
steps than by the tears and embraces of the guilty and wretched: he
refused to humor my light extravagances, or to find time to talk with
me of books, flowers, and music. Had I not been mad to expect it? Now
that I needed sympathy myself, I did him justice. I desired to be with
a true-hearted man, and mingle my tears with his.

I looked at my watch. It was nearly an hour past midnight. In the
corridor the lights were out, except one jet at the end. I threw a
cloak upon my shoulders, put on a Spanish hat and left my apartment,
listening to the echoes of my measured steps retreating through the
deserted passages. A strange sight arrested me on the landing of the
grand staircase. Through an open door I saw the moonlight shining
through the windows of a saloon in which some entertainment had
recently taken place. I looked at my watch again: it was but one
o'clock; and yet the guests had departed. I entered the room, my
boots ringing loudly on the waxed boards. On a chair lay a child's
cloak and a broken toy. The entertainment had been a children's party.
I stood for a time looking at the shadow of my cloaked figure on the
floor, and at the disordered decorations, ghostly in the white light.
Then I saw there was a grand piano still open in the middle of the
room. My fingers throbbed as I sat down before it and expressed all I
felt in a grand hymn which seemed to thrill the cold stillness of the
shadows into a deep hum of approbation, and to people the radiance of
the moon with angels. Soon there was a stir without too, as if the