The Stolen Singer | Page 3

Your mother, Agatha Shaw,
of blessed memory now for many years, was my ward and pupil after
the death of your grandfather. I think I may say without undue
self-congratulation that few women of their time have enjoyed as sound
a scheme of education as your mother. She had a knowledge of
mathematics, could construe both in Latin and Greek, and had acquired
a fair mastery of the historic civilization of the Greeks, Egyptians and
ancient Babylonians. While these attainments would naturally be
insufficient for a man's work in life, yet for a woman they were of an
exceptional order.
"Sufficient to say that in your mother's character these noteworthy
abilities were supplemented by gracious, womanly arts; and when she
arrived at maturity, I offered her the honor of marriage.
"It is painful for me to recall the scene and the consequences of your
mother's refusal of my hand, even after these years of philosophical
reflection. It were idle for a man of parts to allow a mere preference in
regard to his domestic situation to influence his course of action in any
essential matter, and I have never permitted my career to be shaped by
such details. But from that time, however, the course of my life was
changed. From the impassioned orator and preacher I was transformed
into the man of books and the study, and since then I have lived far

from the larger concourses of men. My weekly sermon, for twenty
years, has been the essence of my weekly toil in establishing the
authenticity, first, of the entire second gospel, and second, of the ten
doubtful verses in the fifteenth chapter. My work is now
accomplished--for all time, I believe.
"From the inception of what I considered my life mission, I made the
resolve to bequeath to Agatha Shaw whatever manuscripts or other
material of value my work should lead me to accumulate, together with
this house, in which I have spent all the later years of my life. You are
Agatha Shaw's only child, therefore to me a foster-child.
"Another reason, four years ago, led me to confirm my former
testament. From time to time I have informed myself concerning your
movements and fortunes. The work you have chosen, my dear Agatha,
I can but believe to be fraught with unusual dangers to a young woman.
Therefore I hope that this home, modest as it is, may tempt you to an
early retirement from the stage, and lead you to a more private and
womanly career. This I make only as a request, not as a condition. I bid
you farewell, and give you my blessing.
"Faithfully yours,
"HERCULES THAYER."
Agatha Redmond folded the thin sheets carefully. There was a mist in
her gaze as she looked off toward the distant city lights.
"Dear old gentleman! His whole love-story, and my mother's, too,
perhaps!" Her quickened memory recalled childish impressions of a
visit to a large country house and of a solemn old man--he seemed
incredibly ancient to her--and of feeling that in some way she and her
mother were in a special relationship to the house. It was called "the old
red house," and was full of fascinating things. The ancient man had
bidden her go about and play as if it were her home, and then had
called her to him and laid open a book, leading her mind to regard its
mysteries. Greek! It seemed to her as if she had begun it there and then.
Later the mother became the teacher. She was nursed, as it were, within

sight of the windy plains of Troy and to the sound of the Homeric
hymns--and all by reason of this ancient scholar.
There was a vivid picture in her mind, gathered at some later visit, of a
soft hillside, a small white church standing under its balm-of-gilead
tree, and herself sitting by a stone in the old churchyard, listening to the
strains of a hymn which floated out from the high, narrow windows.
She remembered how, from without, she had joined in the hymn,
singing with all her small might; and suddenly the association brought
back to her a more recent event and a more beautiful strain of music.
Half in reverie, half in conscious pleasure in the exercise of a facile
organ, she began to sing:
"Free of my pain, free of my burden of sorrow, At last I shall see
thee--"
The song floated in a zone of silence that lay above the
deep-murmuring city. The voice was no more than the half-voice of a
flute, sweet, gentle, beguiling. It told, as so many songs tell, of little
earthly Love in the grasp of mighty Fate. Still she sang on, softly, as if
loving the entrancing melody.
Suddenly the song ceased, and the