The Project Gutenberg eBook, Tongues of Conscience, by Robert Smythe
Hichens

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Title: Tongues of Conscience

Author: Robert Smythe Hichens

Release Date: July 6, 2008 [eBook #25986]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)

***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TONGUES OF CONSCIENCE***

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TONGUES OF CONSCIENCE

by

ROBERT HICHENS

_Short Story Index Reprint Series_

Books for Libraries Press
Freeport, New York

First Published 1900
Reprinted 1971

Printed in the United States of America
by
New World Book Manufacturing Co., Inc.
Hallandale, Florida 33009

CONTENTS

PAGE
SEA CHANGE--
Part I. THE RAINBOW 1
Part II. THE GRAVE 51

"WILLIAM FOSTER" 109

THE CRY OF THE CHILD--
Part I. THE DEAD CHILD 183
Part II. THE LIVING CHILD 223

HOW LOVE CAME TO PROFESSOR GUILDEA 267

THE LADY AND THE BEGGAR 341

SEA CHANGE.

PART I.

THE RAINBOW.

"Nothing of him that doth fade,
But doth suffer a sea change,
Into something rich and strange."

SHAKESPEARE.

SEA CHANGE.

PART I.

THE RAINBOW.

In London nightfall is a delirium of bustle, in the country the coming
of a dream. The town scatters a dust of city men over its long and
lighted streets, powders its crying thoroughfares with gaily dressed
creatures who are hidden, like bats, during the hours of day, opens a
thousand defiant yellow eyes that have been sealed in sleep, throws off
its wrapper and shows its elaborate toilet. The country grows demure and
brown, most modest in the shadows. Labourers go home along the damp and
silent lanes with heavy weariness. The parish clergyman flits like a
blackbird through the twinkling village. Dogs bark from solitary farms.
A beautiful and soft depression fills all the air like incense or like
evening bells. But whether nigh