Theron found himself moved as he had never been before.
He almost resented the discovery, when it was presented to him by the prosaic, mechanical side of his brain, that he was listening to organ-music, and that it came through the open window from the church close by.
He would fain have reclined in his chair and closed his eyes, and saturated himself with the uttermost fulness of the sensation.Yet, in absurd despite of himself, he rose and moved over to the window.
Only a narrow alley separated the pastorate from the church;Mr.Ware could have touched with a walking-stick the opposite wall.Indirectly facing him was the arched and mullioned top of a great window.A dim light from within shone through the more translucent portions of the glass below, throwing out faint little bars of party-colored radiance upon the blackness of the deep passage-way.He could vaguely trace by these the outlines of some sort of picture on the window.There were human figures in it, and--yes--up here in the centre, nearest him, was a woman's head.
There was a halo about it, engirdling rich, flowing waves of reddish hair, the lights in which glowed like flame.
The face itself was barely distinguishable, but its half-suggested form raised a curious sense of resemblance to some other face.He looked at it closely, blankly, the noble music throbbing through his brain meanwhile.
"It's that Madden girl!" he suddenly heard a voice say by his side.Dr.Ledsmar had followed him to the window, and was close at his shoulder.
Theron's thoughts were upon the puzzling shadowed lineaments on the stained glass.He saw now in a flash the resemblance which had baffled him."It IS like her, of course," he said.
"Yes, unfortunately, it IS just like her," replied the doctor, with a hostile note in his voice."Whenever I am dining here, she always goes in and kicks up that racket.
She knows I hate it."
"Oh, you mean that it is she who is playing," remarked Theron.