among you, dear friends, but has felt it? You men, slowly torn upon the
rack of rheumatism; you women, with the hidden agony gnawing at your
breast" (his roving regard was swift, like a hawk, to mark down the
sudden, involuntary quiver of a faded slattern under one of the
torches); "all you who have known burning nights and pallid mornings, I
offer you r-r-r-release!"

On the final word his face lighted up as from an inner fire of
inspiration, and he flung his arms wide in an embracing benediction. The
crowd, heavy-eyed, sodden, wondering, bent to him as the torch-fires
bent to the breath of summer. With the subtle sense of the man who
wrings his livelihood from human emotions, he felt the moment of his
mastery approaching. Was it fully come yet? Were his fish securely in
the net? Betwixt hovering hands he studied his audience.

His eyes stopped with a sense of being checked by the steady regard of
one who stood directly in front of him only a few feet away; a
solid-built, crisply outlined man of forty, carrying himself with a
practical erectness, upon whose face there was a rather disturbing
half-smile. The stranger's hand was clasped in that of a little girl,
wide-eyed, elfin, and lovely.

"Release," repeated the man of the torches. "Blessed release from your
torments. Peace out of pain."

The voice was of wonderful quality, rich and unctuous, the labials
dropping, honeyed, from the lips. It wooed the crowd, lured it, enmeshed
it. But the magician had, a little, lost confidence in the power of his
spell. His mind dwelt uneasily upon his well-garbed auditor. What was he
doing there, with his keen face and worldly, confident carriage, amidst