her needs; body and soul, she surrendered herself to the musician’s mood.  Very soon, he was playing upon her being as if she were but another instrument, of which he had acquired the mastery.  Her imagination, stirred to its depths, took instant wing.  It seemed as if the hand of time were put back for many hundreds of years to a day in a remote century.  The building, bare of memorial inscriptions, was crowded with ecclesiastics, monks, nobles and simple; she could see the gorgeous ceremonial incidental to the occasion; the chanting of monks filled her ears; the rich scent of incense lay heavy on the air; lights flickered on the altar.  Night came, when silence seemed to have forever enshrouded the world; many nights, till one on which the moonlight shone upon the figure of a young man keeping his vigil beside his armour and arms.  Then, in a moment, the church was filled with sunlight, and gay with garlands and bright frocks.  The knight and his bride stood before the altar, while the world seemed to laugh for very joy.  As the newly-made man and wife left the church, old-world wedding music sounded strangely in Mavis’ ears.  The best part of a year passed.  A little group stood about the font, where the life, that love had called into being, was purged of taint of sin by holy church.

Next, martial music rent the air; a venerable ecclesiastic blessed the arms and aims of a goodly company of stout-hearted men.  When the echoes of the martial music had died away, the fane was deserted, save for one lone woman, who offered up continual supplication for her absent lord.

Cries and lamentations fell on Mavis’ ears:  to the music of a military march, the brave young knight was borne to burial.  Soon, the moonlight fell upon the church’s first monument, beside which the tearless and kneeling figure of a woman often prayed.  It was not so very long before the widow was carried to rest beside her husband; it seemed but little longer when the offspring of her love stood before the altar with the bride of his choice.

The foregoing scenes were many times repeated, as, thus, life moved down the centuries, differing not at all but for changes in personality and dress.  The church looked on, unmoved, unaltered, save for signs of age and an increasing number of memorials raised to the dead.  The procession of life began by fascinating and ended by paining Mavis.

It was as if she were the spectator of a crowd in which her heart ached to mix, despite the distressing penalties of pain to which those she envied were, at all times, subject.  It was as if she were forever cut off from the pleasures of her kind, to gain which the risk of mental and physical torments was well worth the running.  It seemed as if her youth, sweetness, and immense capacity for loving, were doomed to wither unsought, unappreciated in the desert of her destiny.  As if to save herself from such an unkind fate, she involuntarily fell on her knees; but she did not pray, indeed, she made no attempt to formulate prayer in her heart.  Perhaps she thought that her dumb, bruised loneliness was more eloquent than words.  She remained on her knees for quite a long time.  When she got up, the music stopped.  The contrast between the sound and the succeeding silence was such that the latter seemed to be more emphatic than the melody.