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great deep wail of the music began again it swept everything else from his mind. It seemed to him that this time he got more pleasure from the first few notes, and even noticed delicious passages which had escaped him at the first hearing; and he said to himself, ‘This is going to be even better than the other. I shall keep my head this time and sip all the pleasure at my ease.’ I saw that he settled himself more comfortably to listen and Media slipped her hand into his. It pleased him to think that they were going to the Island together. Now came the vision of the Island again: but this time it was changed, for John scarcely noticed the Island because of a lady with a crown on her head who stood waiting for him on the shore. She was fair, divinely fair. ‘At last,’ said John, ‘a girl with no trace of brown.’ And he began again to wade ashore holding out his arms to embrace that queen: and his love for her appeared to him so great and so pure, and they had been parted for so long, that his pity for himself and her almost overwhelmed him. And as he was about to embrace her the song stopped.
    â€˜Sing it again, sing it again,’ cried John. ‘I liked it better the second time.’
    â€˜Well, if you insist,’ said Mr. Halfways with a shrug. ‘It is nice to have a really appreciative audience.’ So he sang it the third time. This time John noticed yet more about the music. He began to see how several of the effects were produced and that some parts were better than others. He wondered if it were not a trifle too long. The vision of the Island was a little shadowy this time, and he did not take much notice of it. He put his arm round Media and they lay cheek to cheek. He began to wonder if Mr. Halfways would never end: and when at last the final passage closed, with a sobbing break in the singer’s voice, the old gentleman looked up and saw how the young people lay in one another’s arms. Then he rose and said:
    â€˜You have found your Island—you have found it in one another’s hearts.’
    Then he tiptoed from the room, wiping his eyes.

VI
    Ichabod
    â€˜M EDIA, I LOVE YOU,’ said John.
    â€˜We have come to the real Island,’ said Media.
    â€˜But oh, alas!’ said he, ‘so long our bodies why do we forbear?’
    â€˜Else a great prince in prison lies,’ sighed she.
    â€˜No one else can understand the mystery of our love,’ said he.
    At that moment a brisk, hobnailed step was heard and a tall young man strode into the room carrying a light in his hand. He had coal-black hair and a straight mouth like the slit in a pillar-box, and he was dressed in various kinds of metal wire. As soon as he saw them he burst into a great guffaw. The lovers instantly sprang up and apart.
    â€˜Well, Brownie,’ said he, ‘at your tricks again?’
    â€˜Don’t call me that name,’ said Media, stamping her foot. ‘I have told you before not to call me that.’
    The young man made an obscene gesture at her, and then turned to John, ‘I see that old fool of a father of mine has been at you?’
    â€˜You have no right to speak that way of father,’ said Media. Then, turning to John, her cheeks flaming, her breast heaving, she said, ‘All is over. Our dream—is shattered. Our mystery—is profaned. I would have taught you all the secrets of love, and now you are lost to me for ever. We must part. I shall go and kill myself,’ and with that she rushed from the room.

VII
    Non est Hic
    â€˜D ON’T BOTHER ABOUT HER ,’ said the young man. ‘She has threatened that a hundred times. She is only a brown girl, though she doesn’t know it.’
    â€˜A brown girl!’ cried John. ‘And your father . . .’
    â€˜My father has been in the pay of the Brownies all his life. He doesn’t know it, the old chuckle-head. Calls them the Muses, or the Spirit, or some rot.