her soft falsetto rose. "But that will be a very o-ald tune,
Mr. Oleron! I will not have heard it this for-ty years!" "What tune?" Oleron asked. "The tune, indeed, that you was humming, sir." Oleron had his thumb in the flap of a letter. It remained there. "_I_ was humming?... Sing it, Mrs. Barrett." Mrs. Barrett prut-prutted. "I have no voice for singing, Mr. Oleron; it was Ann Pugh was the singer
of our family; but the tune will be very o-ald, and it is called 'The
Beckoning Fair One.'" "Try to sing it," said Oleron, his thumb still in the envelope; and Mrs.
Barrett, with much dimpling and confusion, hummed the air. "They do say it was sung to a harp, Mr. Oleron, and it will be very
o-ald," she concluded. "And _I_ was singing that?" "Indeed you wass. I would not be likely to tell you lies." With a "Very well--let me have breakfast," Oleron opened his letter; but
the trifling circumstance struck him as more odd than he would have
admitted to himself. The phrase he had hummed had been that which he had
associated with the falling from the tap on the evening before. V

Even more curious than that the commonplace dripping of an ordinary
water-tap should have tallied so closely with an actually existing air
was another result it had, namely, that it awakened, or seemed to awaken,
in Oleron an abnormal sensitiveness to other noises of the old house. It
has been remarked that silence obtains its fullest and most impressive
quality when it is broken by some minute sound; and, truth to tell, the
place was never still. Perhaps the mildness of the spring air operated on
its torpid old timbers; perhaps Oleron's fires caused it to stretch its
old anatomy; and certainly a whole world of insect life bored and
burrowed in its baulks and joists. At any rate, Oleron had only to sit
quiet in his chair and to wait for a minute or two in order to become
aware of such a change in the auditory scale as comes upon a man who,
conceiving the midsummer woods to be motionless and still, all at once
finds his ear sharpened to the crepitation of a myriad insects. And he smiled to think of man's arbitrary distinction between that which
has life and that which has not. Here, quite apart from such recognisable
sounds as the scampering of mice, the falling of plaster behind his
panelling, and the popping of purses or coffins from his fire, was a
whole house talking to him had he but known its language. Beams settled
with a tired sigh into their old mortices; creatures ticked in the walls;
joints cracked, boards complained; with no palpable stirring of the air
window-sashes changed their positions with a soft knock in their frames. And whether the place had life in this sense or not, it had at all events
a winsome personality. It needed but an hour of musing for Oleron to
conceive the idea that, as his own body stood in friendly relation to his
soul, so, by an extension and an attenuation, his habitation might
fantastically be supposed to stand in some relation to himself. He even
amused himself with the far-fetched fancy that he might so identify
himself with the place that some future tenant, taking possession, might
regard it as in a sense haunted. It would be rather a joke if he, a
perfectly harmless author, with nothing on his mind worse than a novel he
had discovered he must begin again, should turn out to be laying the
foundation of a future ghost!... In proportion, however, as he felt this growing attachment to the fabric
of his abode, Elsie Bengough, from being merely unattracted, began to
show a dislike of the place that was more and more marked. And she did
not scruple to speak of her aversion. "It doesn't belong to to-day at all, and for you especially it's bad,"
she said with decision. "You're only too ready to let go your hold on
actual things and to slip into apathy; _you_ ought to be in a place
with concrete floors and a patent gas-meter and a tradesmen's lift. And
it would do you all the good in the world if you had a job that made you
scramble and rub elbows with your fellow-men. Now, if I could get you a
job, for, say, two or three days a week, one that would allow you heaps
of time for your proper work--would you take it?" Somehow, Oleron resented a little being diagnosed like this. He thanked
Miss Bengough, but without a smile. "Thank you, but I don't think so. After all each of us has his own life
to live," he could not refrain from adding. "His own life to live!... How long is it since you were out, Paul?" "About two hours." "I don't mean to buy stamps or to post a letter. How long is it since you
had anything like a stretch?" "Oh, some little time perhaps. I don't know." "Since I was here last?" "I haven't been out much." "And has _Romilly_ progressed much better for your being cooped up?" "I think she has. I'm laying the foundations of her. I shall begin the
actual writing presently." It seemed as if Miss Bengough had forgotten their tussle about the first
_Romilly_. She frowned, turned half away, and then quickly turned again. "Ah!... So you've still got that ridiculous idea in your head?" "If you mean," said Oleron slowly, "that I've discarded the old
_Romilly_, and am at work on a new one, you're right. I have still got
that idea in my head." Something uncordial in his tone struck her; but she was a fighter. His
own absurd sensitiveness hardened her. She gave a "Pshaw!" of impatience. "Where is the old one?" she demanded abruptly. "Why?" asked Oleron. "I want to see it. I want to show some of it to you. I want, if you're
not wool-gathering entirely, to bring you back to your senses." This time it was he who turned his back. But when he turned round again
he spoke more gently. "It's no good, Elsie. I'm responsible for the way I go, and you must
allow me to go it--even if it should seem wrong to you. Believe me, I
am giving thought to it.... The manuscript? I was on the point of burning
it, but I didn't. It's in that window-seat, if you must see it." Miss Bengough crossed quickly to the window-seat, and lifted the lid. Suddenly she gave a little exclamation, and put the back of her hand
to her mouth. She spoke over her shoulder:

"You ought to knock those nails in, Paul," she said. He strode to her side. "What? What is it? What's the matter?" he asked. "I did knock them
in--or, rather, pulled them out." "You left enough to scratch with," she replied, showing her hand. From
the upper wrist to the knuckle of the little finger a welling red wound
showed. "Good--Gracious!" Oleron ejaculated.... "Here, come to the bathroom and
bathe it quickly--"

He hurried her to the bathroom, turned on warm water, and bathed and
cleansed the bad gash. Then, still holding the hand, he turned cold water
on it, uttering broken phrases of astonishment and concern. "Good Lord, how did that happen! As far as I knew I'd ... is this water
too cold? Does that hurt? I can't imagine how on earth ... there; that'll
do--"

"No--one moment longer--I can bear it," she murmured, her eyes closed....