Piers' hand descended, gripping his arm. "That, sir, that! Don't you hear?" Voice and gesture compelled. Sir Beverley stopped dead, arrested in full career by his grandson's insistence, and listened with pent breath, as Piers was listening. For a moment or two he heard nothing, then, close outside the window, there arose the sound of children's voices. They were singing a hymn, but not in the customary untuneful yell of the village school. The voices were clear and sweet and true, and the words came distinct and pure to the two men standing at the table. "He comes, the prisoners to release In Satan's bondage held, The gates of brass before Him burst, The iron fetters yield." Piers' hand tightened all-unconsciously upon Sir Beverley's arm. His face was very white. In his eyes there shone a curious hunger--such a look as might have gleamed in the eyes of the prisoners behind the gates. Again came the words, triumphantly repeated: "The gates of brass before Him burst, The iron fetters yield." And an odd sound that was almost a sob broke from Piers. Sir Beverley looked at him sharply; but in the same moment he drew back, relinquishing his hold, and stepped lightly across the room to the window. There was a decided pause before the next verse. Piers stood with his face to the blind, making no movement. At last, tentatively, like the song of a very shy angel, a single boy's voice took up the melody. "He comes, the broken heart to bind, The bleeding soul to cure, And with the treasures of His grace To bless the humble poor." Sir Beverley sat down again at the table. Half mechanically his eyes turned to the pictured face on the wall, the face that smiled so enigmatically. Not once in a year did his eyes turn that way. To-night he regarded it with half-ironical interest. He had no pity to spare for broken hearts. He did not believe in them. No man could have endured more than he had had to endure. He had been dragged through hell itself. But it had hardened, not broken his heart. Save in one respect he knew that he could never be made to suffer any more. Save for that charred remnant, there was nothing left for the flame to consume. And so through all the bitter years he had borne that smiling face upon his wall, cynically indifferent to the beauty which had been the rapture and the agony of his life,--a man released from the place of his torment because his capacity for suffering was almost gone. Again there were two children's voices singing, and that of the shy angel gathered confidence. With a species of scoffing humour Sir Beverley's stony eyes travelled to the window. They rested upon his boy standing there with bent head--a mute, waiting figure with a curious touch of pathos in its pose. Sir Beverley's sudden frown drew his forehead. What ailed the youngster? Why did he stand as if the whole world were resting on his shoulders?