her pass out. Among those who lingered was the Baroness; and all day
she carried about with her the memory of that sparkling countenance;
and strive as she would, she could not drive away a vague, strange
uneasiness which the sight of that face had caused her.

Yet a vision of youth and beauty always made the Baroness unhappy,
now that both blessings were irrevocably lost to her.

This particular young face, however, stirred her with those half-
painful, half-pleasurable emotions which certain perfumes awake in
us--vague reminders of joys lost or unattained, of dreams broken or
unrealised. Added to this, it reminded her of someone she had known,
yet she could not place the resemblance.

"Oh, to be young and beautiful like that!" she sighed as she buried
her face in her pillow that night. "And since I cannot be, if only
Alice had that girl's face."

And because Alice did not have it, the Baroness went to sleep with a
feeling of bitter resentment against its possessor, the beautiful
young organist of St Blank's.



CHAPTER IX



Up in the loft of St Blank's Church the young organist had been
practising the whole morning. People paused on the street to listen