and death.  It might have been, on the one hand, the music with which Orpheus tamed the beasts; and on the other, that which AEschylus arranged to accompany the last act of his tragedy of “Prometheus Bound.”  There was, however, no clear distinction between the joyous airs and the sombre:  all were wrought and mingled into an exciting and bewildering atmosphere of melody, which thrilled the heart and maddened the brain.  But as the music continued, its joyous strains died out; the instrument cried aloud in horror and pain, as if the vulture of Prometheus were tearing at its vitals; darkness seemed to descend upon the room—­a darkness alive with the sighs and groans, the disillusions and tears, of lost souls.  The men sat transfixed with agony and dread, the women were caught in the wild clutches of hysteria, and Courtney himself was as if possessed with a frenzy:  his features were rigid, his eyes dilated, and his hair rose and clung in wavy locks, so that he seemed a very Gorgon’s head.  The only person apparently unmoved was old Dr Rippon, whose pale, gaunt form rose in the background, sinister and calm as Death!

The situation was at its height, when a black cat (a pet of Miss Lefevre’s) suddenly leaped on the top of the piano with a canary in its mouth, and in the presence of them all, laid its captive before Julius Courtney.  The music ceased with a dissonant crash.  With a cry Julius rose and laid his hand on the cat’s neck:  to the general amazement the cat lay down limp and senseless, and the little golden bird fluttered away.  Then the sobs of the women, hitherto controlled, broke out, and the murmurs of the men.

“O Julius!  Julius! what have you done?” cried Nora, sweeping up to him in an ecstasy of emotion.

He caught her in his arms, when with a strange cry—­a strained kind of laugh with a hysterical catch in it—­she sank fainting on his breast.  With a sharp exclamation of pain and fear he bore her swiftly from the room (he was near the door) and into a little conservatory that opened upon the staircase, casting his eyes upon Lefevre as he went, and saying, “Come! come quick!” Lefevre then woke to the fact that he had been fixedly regarding this last strange scene, while Lady Mary clung trembling to his arm.  He hurried out after Julius, followed by Lady Mary and his mother.

“Take her!” cried Julius, standing away from Nora, and looking white and terror-stricken.  “Restore her!  Oh, I must not!—­I dare not touch her!”

With nimble accustomed fingers Lady Mary undid Nora’s dress, while the doctor applied the remedies usual in hysterical fainting.  Nora opened her eyes and fixed them upon Julius.

“O Julius, Julius!” she cried.  “Do not leave me!  Come near me!  Oh!...  I think I am going to die!”

“My love! my life! my soul!” said Julius, stretching out his hands to her, but approaching no nearer.  “I cannot—­I must not touch you!  No, no!  I dare not!”