noble possibilities spread itself before his eyes. He slammed his heavy
outside door (called an "oak") to prevent anyone entering and flung
himself into the window-seat. Here he sat for a long time, the sash
thrown up and his head outside, for he was excited and feverish. His
mental exaltation was so great and his thoughts of so absorbing an
interest that he took no notice of time, and only remembered afterwards
that the scent of a syringa-bush was borne up to him from a little
garden-patch opposite, and that a bat had circled slowly up and down the
lane, until he heard the clocks striking three. At the same time the
faint light of dawn made itself felt almost imperceptibly; the classic
statues on the roof of the schools began to stand out against the white
sky, and a faint glimmer to penetrate the darkened room. It glistened on
the varnished top of his violin-case lying on the table, and on a jug of
toast-and-water placed there by his college servant or scout every night
before he left. He drank a glass of this mixture, and was moving towards
his bedroom door when a sudden thought struck him. He turned back, took
the violin from its case, tuned it, and began to play the "Areopagita"
suite. He was conscious of that mental clearness and vigour which not
unfrequently comes with the dawn to those who have sat watching or
reading through the night: and his thoughts were exalted by the effect
which the first consciousness of a deep passion causes in imaginative
minds. He had never played the suite with more power; and the airs,
even without the piano part, seemed fraught with a meaning hitherto
unrealised. As he began the _Gagliarda_ he heard the wicker chair creak;
but he had his back towards it, and the sound was now too familiar to
him to cause him even to look round. It was not till he was playing
the repeat that he became aware of a new and overpowering sensation.
At first it was a vague feeling, so often experienced by us all, of
not being alone. He did not stop playing, and in a few seconds the
impression of a presence in the room other than his own became so strong