us ways. He may
elect to say to himself, I remember vividly the cry of--" He stopped
abruptly, then went on hastily, "the sound of bells. My mind hears them.
Let me--for my amusement--push on my imagination a step further and see
what will happen. Hark! It's done. My ears can hear now what a moment
ago only my mind could hear. Yes, my ears hear it now."

He spoke with such conviction, and the gesture which he linked with his
words, was so dramatic, that Lily pushed herself up on the pillows of
the sofa, and even the Canon involuntarily assumed an attitude of keen
attention.

"Why, Dale," the latter said after a moment, "you should have been an
actor, not a doctor. Really you led me to anticipate bells, and I only
hear the wind. Lily, didn't you feel as I did, eh?"

Lily had gone a little pale. She looked across at Maurice.

"I don't know that I expected to hear bells, father," she said slowly.

As she said those words, Maurice Dale, for the first time, felt as if a
human being drew very near to his secret. Lily's glance at him asked him
a question. "What was it that pierced through the wind so faintly?" it
seemed to say.

"What then?" the Canon asked.

"I don't know," she replied.

Maurice got up.

"I must go now," he said.

The Canon protested. It was early. They must have one more smoke. But
Maurice could not be induced to stay. As he walked rapidly homeward in
the darkness he told himself again and again that he was a fool. How
could it be? How could she hear the cry? The cry of the child?

That night Lily did not read a French novel. She lay awake. Her fancy
was set on fire by the evening's talk. Her girlish imagination was
kindled. In those dark and silent hours she first began to weave a web
of romance round Maurice, to see him set in a cloud of looming tragedy.
He looked more beautiful to her in this cloud than he had looked before.
Lily thought it might be wicked, but somehow she could not help loving
mental suffering--in others. And the face of Maurice gazed at her in the
blackness beneath a shadowy crown of thorns.

Next day, at the early service, she was inattentive to the ministrations
of religion. Her father seemed a puppet at its prayers, the choir a row
of surpliced dolls, the organ an empty voice. Only at the end, when
silence fell on the kneeling worshippers, did she wake with a start of
contrition to the knowledge of her impiety, and blush between her little
hands at her concentration up