ledge,
and that called a tragedy!

Yet now to Peter Uniacke it was tragedy, and his own situation, left in
the safety of ignorance preaching to the ignorant, tragedy too, because
of the night, and the winds and the sea noises, and the bareness of this
Isle.

Beyond the church a light shone out, and a bearded shadow towered and
dwindled upon a white blind. Uniacke, a bachelor, and now almost of
necessity a recluse, entertained for the present a visitor. Remembering
the substance of the shadow he opened the churchyard gate, threaded his
way among the gravestones, and was quickly at the Vicarage door. As he
passed within, a yellow glow of lamplight and of firelight streamed into
the narrow passage from a chamber on the left hand, and he heard his
piano, surprised to learn that it could be taught to deliver
passionately long winding melodies from _Tristan and Isolde_. Uniacke
laid down his hat and stick and entered his sitting-room, still
companioned by the shadowy thought-form of the boy of the schooner
"Flying Fish," who seemed to tramp at his side noiselessly, in long
sea-boots that streamed with the salt water.

The man at the piano turned round, showing a handsome and melancholy
face, and eyes that looked as if they were tired, having seen too many
men and deeds and cities.

"I make myself at home, you see," he said, "as I hope you will some day
in my studio, when you visit me at Kensington."

Uniacke smiled, and laid his hand on a bell which tinkled shrewishly.

"It is a great treat for me to hear music and a voice not my own in this
room," he answered. "Are you ready for tea?"

"Thank you, I painted till it was dark. I was able to paint."

"I'm glad of that."

"When it was too dim to see, and too cold to feel the brush between my
fingers, I came back in the twilight to my new roof tree. I am thankful
to be out of the inn, yet I've stayed in worse places in Italy and
Greece. But they were gilded by the climate."

He sat down by the fire and stretched his limbs. Uniacke looked at him
rather curiously. To the lonely clergyman it was a novel experience to
play host to a man of distinction, to a stranger who had filled the
world with his fame years ago. Three days before, in one of his island
walks, Uniacke had come upon a handsome bearded man in a lane full of
mud, between bleak walls of stone. The man stopped him courteously,
asked if he were not the clergyman of the Isle, and, receiving an
affirmative repl