"Well, Sanchia," he said, "here I am."

The great music went sobbing and chiding through her frame, like wounded
nightingales.

Senhouse came back to her bedside and put a little flower into her hand




[Illustration: Wrote deliberately to each of her sisters.]




BOOK I

OF THE NATURE OF A PROLOGUE, DEALING WITH A BRUISED PHILOSOPHER IN
RETIREMENT




I


An observant traveller, homing to England by the Ostend-Dover packet in
the April of some five years ago, relished the vagaries of a curious
couple who arrived by a later train, and proved to be both of his