everybody was too passionately carried away by all this greatness to inquire!
A high duty to take part in a savage "free-for-all" and take it seriously! A sacred privilege to go back into a dusty stampede! The answer was a snort. The Bridgetown Quakers were as unsympathetic, in the mass, as their conscientiously belligerent brothers in the mass. No mob's programme could be his; that was the essence of his experience.
After getting into bed he heard a sound which he took to be a knock at the door. He was startled, listened tensely for a moment, and concluded it was the wind. Then he remembered he had left the playroom window open. He had meant to close it, for there was an encampment of gypsies outside the village. He lit a candle and went downstairs. A puff of air extinguished the light, and he felt his way across the playroom.
Something in the atmosphere made him uneasy. A trace of his old dread of the dark assailed him, and he stood, back to the window, exhorting his nerves. The restlessness only increased, and he started violently when Mrs. Barker's clock in the kitchen whirred, preparatory to striking the hour.
Its tones recalled the exotic chimes, and the solace which was ever associated with them came to his aid. He could make out the position of the piano, for a corner of the polished lid faintly gleamed. His attention was suddenly but calmly riveted on this glow, which, whilst he looked, became more and more diffused, till it seemed to outline a human figure.
Paul breathlessly waited.
The figure died away, and no glow was left to mark the position of the piano. For some moments he stood rigid, then turned and left the playroom, numb, exalted, reassured—armed as with an invisible coat of mail.
