With a last look round his little room, John swiftly undressed, stood pyjama clad and barefooted a moment after brushing his hair, looking out on the bright moonlight night, and the quaint caricature of the Campanile. Then he turned off the light and leapt into bed. But not to sleep. This was his first day, and he now slept for the first night in the city he had come to conquer; so far he had done little conquering, he thought, as he reviewed the events of this day. The moonlight flooded his room, making it still more unfamiliar. He watched the swiftly fading glow of the gas fire, and his eye caught the portrait of Muriel, illuminated in a direct beam of moonlight on the mantelpiece. Mastered by an impulse, he threw back the clothes and put a foot on the cold floor, then sprang out and took the portrait from its place. For a long moment he looked at it in the dimness, then pressed his lips to the cold glass, and was about to get into bed, when he did what he had not done for a long time. He had never given any serious thought to religion; perhaps he was instinctively rather than formally religious. The times when he had sat in school chapel had been irksome, though occasionally a hymn, and the high fresh voices of the choir had stirred him, aesthetically, not spiritually. But to-night he felt very lonely, and just a little afraid. Moreover there was a new faith in his fervent love for Muriel, which somehow required expression. So quietly he slipped down to his knees, buried his face in his hands, and prayed in a somewhat disordered fashion for something which he could hardly define. Then standing up again, he looked at the photograph, wondering whether the head he saw, in reality lying on a pillow in a quiet country room, flooded with light from this same moon, would realise anything of what he had just done and said. He turned to replace the frame, then, on a thought, put it under his pillow and got into bed. Two minutes later, quiet breathing in a silent room told of a dreaming head, smiling for some reason, buried deep in the pillow. He was oblivious even of Capt. Fisher's deep bassoon in a room above. CHAPTER II I