of the song, the restrained, well-bred applause broke out, Peter
Mallory's share of it was offered as much to the accompanist as to the
singers themselves.

"Stay where you are, Nan," cried Kitty, as the girl half rose from the
music-seat. "Stay where you are and play us something."

Knowing Nan's odd liking for a dim light, she switched off most of the
burners as she spoke, leaving only one or two heavily shaded lights
still glowing. Mallory crossed the room so that, as he stood leaning
with one elbow on the chimney-piece, he faced the player, on whose
aureole of dusky hair one of the lights still burning cast a glimmer.
While he waited for her to begin, he was aware of a little unaccustomed
thrill of excitement, as though he were on the verge of some discovery.

Hesitatingly Nan touched a chord or two. Then without further preamble
she broke into the strange, suggestive music which Penelope had
described as representing the murder of a soul. It opened joyously,
the calm beginnings of a happy spirit; then came a note of warning, the
first low muttering of impending woe. Gradually the simple melody
began to lose itself in a chaos of calamity, bent and swayed by wailing
minor cadences through whose torrent of hurrying sound it could be
heard vainly and fitfully trying to assert itself again, only to be at
last weighed down, crushed out, by a cataclysm of despairing chords.
Then, after a long, pregnant pause--the culminating silence of
defeat--the original melody stole out once more, repeated in a minor
key, hollow and denuded.

As the music ceased the lights sprang up again and Nan, looking across
the room, met Mallory's gaze intently bent upon her. In his expression