. But the
experiences of the last few days had tended to throw him into the past,
and for once he gave himself up to it.

Presently there came to him the sound of a banjo--not an unusual thing at
Herridon. It had its mock negro minstrels, whom, hearing, Telford was
anxious to offend. This banjo, he knew at once, was touched by fingers
which felt them as if born on them, and the chords were such as are only
brought forth by those who have learned them to melodies of the south. He
stopped before the house and leaned upon the fence. He heard the voice go
shivering through a negro hymn, which was among the first he had ever
known. He felt himself suddenly shiver--a thrill of nervous sympathy. His
face went hot and his hands closed on the palings tightly. He stole into
the garden quietly, came near the window and stood still. He held his
mouth in his palm. He had an inclination to cry out.

"Good God!" he said in a whisper. "To hear that off here after all these
years!" Suddenly the voice stopped. There was a murmur within. It came to
him indistinctly. "She has forgotten the rest," he said. Instantly and
almost involuntarily he sang:

"Look up an look aroun,
Fro you burden on de groun."

Then came the sequel as we described, and his low chanting of the negro
woodcutter's chant. He knew that any who answered it must have lived the
life he once lived in Louisiana, for he had never heard it since he had
left there, nor any there hum it except those who knew the negroes well.
Of an evening, in the hot, placid south, he had listened to it come
floating over the sugarcane and through the brake and go creeping weirdly
under the magnolia trees. He waited, hoping, almost wildly--he knew it was
a wild hope--that there would be a reply. There was none. But presently
there came to him Baron's crude, honest singing:

"For you'll take the high road, and I'll take the low road,
And I'll be in Scotland before you;
But I and my true love will never meet again
On the bonnie, bonnie banks o' Ben Lomond."

Telford drew in his breath sharply, caught his mustache between his teeth
savagely for a minute, then let it go with a run of ironical laughter. He
looked round him. He saw in the road two or three people who had been
attracted by the music. They seemed so curious merely, so apathetic--his
feelings were playing at full tide. To him they were the idle, intrusive
spectators of his trouble. All else was dark about