The sun was down ere he left the park, and the twilight was rapidly following the sun as he drew near to the Abbey on his way home. Suddenly, more like an odour than a sound, he heard the organ, he thought. Never yet had he heard it on a week-day: the organist was not of those who haunt their instrument. Often of late had the curate gazed on that organ as upon a rock filled with sweet waters, before which he stood a Moses without his rod; sometimes the solemn instrument appeared to him a dumb Jeremiah that sat there from Sunday to Sunday, all the week long, with his head bowed upon his hands, and not a Jebusite to listen to him: if only his fingers had been taught the craft, he thought, how his soul would pour itself out through the song-tubes of that tabernacle of sweetness and prayer, and on the blast of its utterance ascend to the throne of the most high! Who could it be that was now peopling the silence of the vast church with melodious sounds, worshipping creatures of the elements? If the winds and the flames of fire are his angels, how much more the grandly consorting tones of the heavenly organ! He would go and see what power informed the vaporous music. He entered the church by one of the towers, in which a stair led skyward, passing the neighbourhood of the organ, and having a door to its loft. As he ascended, came a pause in the music;--and then, like the breaking up of a summer cloud in the heavenliest of rain-showers, began the prelude to the solo in the Messiah, THOU DIDST NOT LEAVE HIS SOUL IN HELL. Up still the curate crept softly. All at once a rich full contralto voice--surely he had heard it before--came floating out on the torrent, every tone bearing a word of sorrowful triumph in its bosom. He reached the door. Very gently he opened it, and peeped in. But the back of the organ was towards him, and he could see nothing. He stepped upon the tiles of the little apse. One stride cleared the end of the organ, and he saw the face of the singer: it WAS Helen Lingard! She started. The music folded its wings and dropped--like a lark into its nest. But Helen recovered herself at once, rose from her ministration at the music-altar, and approached the curate. “Have I taken too great a liberty?” she said, in a gentle, steady voice. “No, surely,” he answered. “I am sorry I startled you. I wish you would wake such sounds oftener.” “He didn’t leave my brother’s soul in hell, did he, Mr. Wingfold?” she said abruptly, and her eyes shone through the dusk. “If ever a soul was taken out of hell, it was Leopold’s,” returned the curate. “And it lifts mine out of it too,” he added, “to hear you say so.” “I behaved very badly to you. I confess my fault. Will you forgive me?” she said. “I love you too much to be able to forgive you:” that was the word in the curate’s heart, but a different found its way to his lips.