The music was nearer now, coming from the direction from which the three travelers had themselves come this afternoon.

Presently, from the apparent diminuendo, it was plain that the singers were past, and were going on towards the town.

There was no sound of footsteps; the Major remarked on that, when he could get Frank to attend a few minutes later, when all was over; but there were field paths running in every direction, as well as broad stretches of grass beside the road, so the singers may very well have been walking on soft ground.

(These points are dispassionately noted down in the diary.) The chorus was growing fainter now; once more the last slopes of the melody were in sight--those downhill gradations of the air that told of the silence to come.

Then once more, for an instant, there was silence, till again, perhaps nearly a quarter of a mile away, the single tenor voice began _da capo_.