Gradually the music rose and fell, and then gently, and before any were aware, a sweet, low, girlish voice took up the burden and sang the words.

It was the girl of the streets who sang.

Was it the memory of some village home that these chords had awakened?
Was it the vision of her younger and purer days that came back to her amid the gayeties of this night--of the hamlet, the church, the choir, and of herself singing there?
The hymn melted the hearts of many that stood around, and tears now stood in the singer's downcast eyes.
* * * * * At that hour of that night, in the solitary homestead far north, among the hills, what was Rotha's travail of soul?
* * * * * Ralph dropped his head, and felt something surging in his throat.
At the same instant a thick-lipped man with cruel eyes crushed through the people to where the girl stood, and, taking her roughly by the shoulder, pushed her away.
"Hand thy gab," he said, between clinched teeth; "what's _thy_ business singing hymns in t'streets?
Get along home to bed; that's more in thy style, I reckon." The girl was stealing away covered with shame, when Ralph parted the people that divided him from the man, and, coming in front of him, laid one hand on his throat.

Gasping for breath, the fellow would have struggled to free himself, but Ralph held him like a vise.
"This is not the first time we have met; take care it shall be the last." So saying, Ralph flung the man from him, and he fell like an infant at his feet.
Gathering himself up with a look compounded equally of surprise and hatred, the man said, "Nay, nay; do you think it'll be the last?
don't you fear it!" Then he slunk out of the crowd, and it was observed that when he had gained the opposite side of the street, the little, pale-faced elderly person who had been known as Ralph's Shadow, had joined him.
* * * * * "Is it our man ?" "The same, for sure." "Then it must be done the day.

We've delayed too long already.".