‘How happy we were! I should weary you if I described our intercourse. We were like girls together, for Janet’s society made me younger. I felt I had discovered in this girl a mind equal to my own, and I was not too proud to place myself on a level with her. I had very few people with me when she first came, and we lived our own lives in perfect freedom, wandering about the grounds—it was in early summer—staying up till long after midnight listening to that dear girl’s singing, and thoroughly enjoying ourselves. One afternoon I drove Janet in my pony carriage to Hillsleigh, where I daresay you know there is a fine old Gothic church, and a still finer organ.’ ‘I can guess what is coming,’ said Geoffrey, frowning. ‘Yes, it was at Hillsleigh we first met the man whose baneful influence destroyed that poor child’s life; and O, Mr. Hossack, I blame myself for this business. If it had not been for my folly, he could never have possessed himself of Janet’s mind as he did. I saw the evil when it was too late to undo what I had done.’ ‘Pray go on,’ said Geoffrey eagerly; ‘I want to know who and what that man was.’ ‘A mystery,’ answered Lady Baker. ‘And unhappily it was the mystery which surrounded him that made him most attractive to a romantic girl. Please let me tell the story my own way. How well I remember that June afternoon, the soft warm air, the birds singing in the old churchyard! We wandered about among the tombstones for a little while, reading the epitaphs, and, I am afraid, sometimes laughing at them, until all at once Janet caught hold of my arm and cried “Hark!” her face lighted up with rapture. Through the open windows of the church there came such a burst of melody, the opening of the _Agnus Dei_ in Mozart’s Twelfth, played by a master-hand. “O,” whispered Janet, with a gasp of delight, “isn’t that lovely?”’ ‘It was that scoundrel!’ cried Geoffrey. ‘“I told you the Hillsleigh organ was worth hearing,” said I. “Yes,” said Janet, “but you did not tell me that the organist was one of the finest players in England. I’m sure that man must be.” “Why, my dear,” said I, “when I was last here the man played the usual droning voluntaries. This must be a new organist. Let’s go in and see him.” “No,” said Janet, stopping me, “let us stay here till he has done playing. He may leave off if we go in.” So we sat down upon one of the crumbling old tombstones and listened to our hearts’ content. The man played through a great part of the Mass, and then strayed off into something else; wild strange music, which might or might not be sacred, but which sounded to me like a musical version of the great Pandemonium scene in _Paradise Lost_. Altogether this lasted nearly an hour, and then we heard the church door open and saw the player come out.’ ‘Pray describe him.’