And before her astonished captor could get himself to the doorway she had sat down on the rickety old hair-cloth stool and swept the keys lightly. The old chords trembled and shivered as if awaking from a tomb, and uttered forth a quavering, sweet sound like ancient memories. The man was too much astonished to stop her, amused too, perhaps, and interested. Her white fingers over the dusty pearls in the growing dusk had a strange charm for the hardened reprobate, like the wonder of a flower dropped into the foulness of a prison. Before he could recover, he was startled again by her voice soaring out in the empty echoing house: Rock of ages, cleft for me, Let me hide myself in Thee; Let the water and the blood From Thy riven side which flowed, Be of sin the double cure, Save me Lord and make me pure! Perhaps those dim, gloomy walls had echoed before to the grand old tune, but never could it have been sung in dire strait, or with more earnest cry from a soul in distress. She had chosen the first words that seemed to fit the chords she had struck, but every syllable was a prayer to the God in whom she trusted. It may be the man felt the power of her appeal as he stood rooted in the doorway and listened while she sang through all the verses she could remember. But the last trembling note was broken harshly by Joe's voice at the kitchen door in sharp, rasping orders: "Hist, there! Can that noise! Do you want to raise hell here? Wake up, Sam! Get onto your job. Hennie's comin'." "That's all right, Joe! Dry up! This is good Sunday School dope! This won't rouse no suspicions. Go to the devil and mind your business! I know what I'm about!" Shirley was almost ready to cry, but she drew a deep breath and started on another song: Jesus, Lover of my soul, Let me to Thy bosom fly, While the nearer waters roll, While the tempest still is high! Hide me, oh, my Saviour hide, Till the storm of life is past.