Night and day the tones of the organ boomed
on as before. It seemed that the doom of the
wretched man was not yet fulfilled, although
his tortured body had been worn out in the
terrible struggle to accomplish it. Even his own
mother was afraid to go near the room then.
So the time went on, and the curse of this
perpetual music was not removed from the house.
Servants refused to stay about the place. Visitors
shunned it. The squire and his wife left
their home for years, and returned; left it, and
returned again, to find their ears still tortured
and their hearts wrung by the unceasing
persecution of terrible sounds. At last, but a lew
months ago, a holy man was found, who locked
himself up in the cursed chamber for many days,
praying and wrestling with the demon. After
he came forth and went away the sounds ceased,
and the organ was heard no more. Since then
there has been peace in the house. And now,
Lisa, your strange appearance and your strange
story convince us that you are a victim of a
ruse of the Evil One. Be warned in time, and
place yourself under the protection of God, that
you may be saved from the fearful influences
that are at work upon you. Come——"

Margaret Calderwood turned to the corner
where the stranger sat, as she had supposed,
listening intently. Little Lisa was fast asleep,
her hands spread before her as if she played an
organ in her dreams.

Margaret took the soft brown face to her
motherly breast, and kissed the swelling temples,
too big with wonder and fancy.

"We will save you from a horrible fate!"
she murmured, and carried the girl to bed.

In the morning Lisa was gone. Margaret
Calderwood, coming early from her own chamber,
went into the girl's room and found the
bed empty.

"She is just such a wild thing," thought
Margaret, "as would rush out at sunrise to
hear the larks!" and she went forth to look
for her in the meadows, behind the beech hedges,
and in the home park. Mistress Hurly, from
the breakfast-room window, saw Margaret
Calderwood, large and fair in her white morning
gown, coming down the garden-path between the
rose-bushes, with her fresh draperies dabbled
by the dew, and a look of trouble on her calm
face. Her quest had been unsuccessful. The
little foreigner had vanished.

A second search after breakfast proved also
fruitless, and towards evening the two women
drove back to Hurly Burly together. There
all was panic and distress. The squire sat in his
study with the doors shut, and his hands over
his ears. The servants, with pale faces, were
huddled together in whispering groups. The
haunted organ was pealing through the house as
of old.

Margaret Calderwood hastened to the fatal
chamber, and there, sure enough, was Lisa,
perched upon the high seat before the organ,
beating the keys with her small hands, her slight
figure swaying, and the evening sun playing about
her weird head. Sweet unearthly music she
wrung from the groaning heart of the organ—
wild melodies, mounting to rapturous heights
and falling to mournful depths. She wandered
from Mendelssohn to Mozart, and from Mozart
to Beethoven. Margaret stood fascinated awhile
by the ravishing beauty of the sounds she heard,
but, rousing herself quickly, put her arms round
the musician and forced her away from the
chamber. Lisa returned next day, however,
and was not so easily coaxed from her post
again. Day after day she laboured at the
organ, growing paler and thinner and more
weird-looking as the time went on.

"I work so hard," she said to Mrs. Hurly.
"The signor, your son, is he pleased? Ask
him to come and tell me himself if he is
pleased."

Mistress Hurly got ill and took to her bed.
The squire swore at the young foreign baggage,
and roamed abroad. Margaret Calderwood was
the only one who stood by to watch the fate of
the little organist. The curse of the organ was
upon Lisa; it spoke under her hand, and her
hand was its slave.

At last she announced rapturously that she
had had a visit from the brave signor, who had
commended her industry, and urged her to work
yet harder. After that she ceased to hold any
communication with the living. Time after
time Margaret Calderwood wrapped her arms
about the frail thing, and carried her away by
force, locking the door of the fatal chamber.
But locking the chamber and burying the key
were of no avail. The door stood open again,
and Lisa was labouring on her perch.

One night, wakened from her sleep by the
well-known humming and moaning of the organ,
Margaret dressed hurriedly and hastened to the
unholy room. Moonlight was pouring down
the staircase and passages of Hurly Burly. It
shone on the marble bust of the dead Lewis
Hurly, that stood in the niche above his mother's
sitting-room door. The organ room was full of
it when Margaret pushed open the door and
entered—full of the pale green moonlight from
the window, mingled with another light, a dull
lurid glare which seemed to centre round a dark
shadow like the figure of a man standing by the
organ, and throwing out in fantastic relief the
slight form of Lisa writhing, rather than swaying,
back and forward, as if in agony. The sounds
that came from the organ were broken and
meaningless, as if the hands of the player lagged
and stumbled on the keys. Between the
intermittent chords low moaning cries broke from
Lisa, and the dark figure bent towards her with
menacing gestures. Trembling with the
sickness of supernatural fear, yet strong of will,
Margaret Calderwood crept forward within the
radii of the lurid light, and was drawn into its
influence. It grew and intensified upon her, it
dazzled and blinded her at first, but presently,
by a daring effort of will, she raised her eyes
and beheld Lisa's face convulsed with torture
in the burning glare, and bending over her the
figure and the features of Lewis Hurly! Smitten