as not a plain person,
so on the whole it is scarcely wonderful that a certain effect was
produced upon Harold Quaritch. Ida went on singing almost without a
break--to outward appearance, at any rate, all unconscious of what was
passing in her admirer's mind. She had a good memory and a sweet
voice, and really liked music for its own sake, so it was no great
effort to her to do so.

Presently, she sang a song from Tennyson's "Maud," the tender and
beautiful words whereof will be familiar to most readers of her story.
It began:

"O let the solid ground
Not fail beneath my feet
Before my life has found
What some have found so sweet."

The song is a lovely one, nor did it suffer from her rendering, and
the effect it produced upon Harold was of a most peculiar nature. All
his past life seemed to heave and break beneath the magic of the music
and the magic of the singer, as a northern field of ice breaks up
beneath the outburst of the summer sun. It broke, sank, and vanished
into the depths of his nature, those dread unmeasured depths that roll
and murmur in the vastness of each human heart as the sea rolls
beneath its cloak of ice; that roll and murmur here, and set towards a
shore of which we have no chart or knowledge. The past was gone, the
frozen years had melted, and once more the sweet strong air of youth
blew across his heart, and once more there was clear sky above,
wherein the angels sailed. Before the breath of that sweet song the
barrier of self fell down, his being went out to meet her being, and
all the sleeping possibilities of life rose from the buried time.

He sat and listened, trembling as he listened, till the gentle echoes
of the music died upon the quiet air. They died, and were gathered
into the emptiness which receives and records all things, leaving him
broken.

She turned to him, smiling faintly, for the song had moved her also,
and he felt that he must speak.

"That is a beautiful song," he said; "sing it again if you do not
mind."

She made no answer, but once more she sang:

"O let the solid ground
Not fail beneath my feet
Before my life has found
What some have found so sweet;"

and then suddenly broke off.

"Why are you looking at me?" she said. "I can feel you looking at me
and it makes me nervous."

He bent towards her and look