After a while Victoria said speaking slowly, "Victor, what do you want me to do?"

"I want you to use your influence with the manager or with John King to get me a place again."

Victoria shook her head sadly.

"I'm afraid it will be impossible."

"I don't know why. My voice is just the same," Victor spoke fiercely.

"You know that society passes its verdict on--"

"On convicts, for life! Yes, once a convict always a convict!"

"Don't Victor!" Victoria spoke with a shudder. Then she added, "I will do all in my power to help you. Do you want me to see the manager?"

"Yes, and John King. If he believes as he preaches he ought to give me another chance."

"I will see him, too," said Victoria quietly.

"When?"

"I will go tomorrow and see the manager."

Just then the father came in.

He was surprised at the sight of Victor. The greeting between them was awkward and constrained. Victor was sullen and said little. He complained of being very tired and after a little went off to the room Victoria had been keeping ready for him.

In the morning Victoria went to see the manager. She at once made known her errand.

"You remember my brother Victor? He has served out his time and in in the city. He wants to go on the stage again. He wants a position in the Symphony--"

"What! With a state prison record! I beg pardon, Miss Stanwood, but we must talk plainly about this."

"I know, I know," replied Victoria in much distress. "It gives me unspeakable pain to think of it. Still, could it not be possible for my brother to secure a position in some way? I am convinced that his future depends on his getting some large place where he can sing to the best people."

"That may be true. But it would be out of the question for him to come on with the Symphony. His prison record is too fresh in the public mind. It would be an insult to the public to announce him now."

Victoria flushed.

"Even if he were entirely reformed?"

"Even if he were entirely reformed. But is he?"

"He says little. He is very anxious to get back into his old place as a popular singer. Is there no hope for him?"

"In time, yes. But not now. It would simply kill us all with the public to put him forward."

"And yet his voice-- Oh, you should hear it. His voice will surely win its way with the people. They will forgive anything when they hear him. Surely the people will treat him kindly for my sake."

"There are the other performers. How will they take him?"

"I hadn't thought of them."

The manager was thoughtfully silent. At last he said as if he having a debate with himself--

"I am under great obligations to you, Miss Stanwood. And I am willing to do this. I will engage Victor for one week. I have little doubt that the result will be disastrous, but that is my lookout. Send him to me. I want to see him and talk with him."

Victoria was surprised but she did not say much. She dreaded to go back to Victor with out some hope to give him. The manager's unespected offer relieved her. She did not have quite the same fear of results as he had. She thanked him heartily and returned to Victor.

"The manager wants to see you." she said to him without giving details of the conversation.

When Victor went into the manager's office he was alone. He at once said; "Mr. Stanwood, you understand the risk I run in giving you a position on the Symphony. This is a matter of dollars and cents with me. I have agreed to give you an opportunity to sing for one week. I have not heard you sing since the night of the concert. I have the right to ask you to favor me now. I run all the risk of offending my public but if I do so I wish to have some excuse in your voice. There is the piano. Will you play your own accompaniment or shall I?

"I'll play my own," said Victor shortly.

He went over to the piano and sat down and at once began to sing.

There was no mistaking his wonderful gift for anything ordinary. The manager was a man of the world and he knew that such voices were very rare. When Victor had finished, the manager remained thoughtfully seated by his desk. At last he said plainly,

"You have a remarkable voice, young man, and if it wasn't for those three years in the pen I would be lucky to get you at any price. But you know that makes a difference."

Victor stood biting his lip and nervously beating his foot on the floor. "Yes, I told Victoria once a convict always a convict. Has that anything to do with my ability to sing?"

"No, but it has something to do with your reception by the public," said the manager coolly. "However I will do what I promised. Give you a week. It will probably cost me a pretty penny but--" he smiled a little grimly, "I will make the public pay most of it."

He made terms with Victor who soon went away and when he was fairly out on the street the curtains at the end of the room parted as they had done several years before when Victoria played, as she thought, to the manager alone, and several gentlemen came into the room.

The manager's friends were very free in their criticisms.

"A most unusual voice."

"A remarkable rendering of a simple piece of ballad music."

"Why, everyone knows Stanwood's history. It will make trouble in your company."

"No, it won't; the public will forgive everything for the voice."

"I wouldn't risk it myself."

And so on. Some opposed, some condemned the manager's action in making the engagement with Victor, but all without exception praised his great gift.

Victor was to appear the first night of the coming week. The public soon learned of the engagement and a tremendous house greeted him as he made his appearance. The daily papers had devoted large space to his career and refreshed people's minds on the facts of the forgery and the assault of three years ago. There seemed to be a variety of opinion as to the purpose of the manager in hiring this attraction. But the first two nights Victor sang to crowded houses and with considerable favor from the audience. The third night however there arose a difficulty. The lady who had played his accompaniments came to the manager just before the curtain was to rise and told him she would not play. She had just learned the full facts in regard to the new tenor. The manager was expecting something of the kind and was prepared for it.

"Very well," he said, and sent for Victoria.

"Miss Stanwood, will you play for your brother this evening?"

Victoria saw what the trouble was and instantly replied;

"Yes. We will go on together. I am ready."

When the time came brother and sister came on, Victoria with her violin for she preferred to accompany Victor with that instrument instead of with the piano. Victor understood why she was obliged to do so. His face was hard and pale. Nevertheless he did his part splendidly. The audience was enthusiastic. Brother and sister were called back. There were people in the city who understood and sympathized with Victoria's story and the present situation.

But when the Symphony was over that night Victor abruptly went to the manager and said,

"Cancel my engagement!"

"Why? What is the --"

"I cannot stand such things as those to-night. I heard what Madam W. said to you."

"It is what you might expect." The manager spoke with some bitterness. Then he added with some feeling, "I was in hopes you night live it down. There's half a dozen of the company however gave notice to-day that they should quit. The public is all right. It's the fastidious people on the stage that object --"

"To a convict!" said Victor with a hard laugh. He went home with Victoria, enraged at all the world. It took the manager a long time to recover from the disastrous effects of that experiment. With some people he has never recovered from the disgrace of putting a convict into the Symphony.

The next day Victor announced his intention of going to see John King.

"I don't want you to go, Vi," he said with a nearer approach to his old time affection than he had yet shown. "I have asked too much of you already. I will look after myself."

So in spite of Victoria's earnest and loving willingness to do anything for him, he went alone to see John King.

The preacher happened to be in his study alone. He greeted Victor just the same as if those three years with all their disgrace and agony had never been. Victor was nervous and at once made known his errand.

"I want to sing again in your church, Mr. King. Can you take me back?"

John King looked at him with a serious but not sad look peculiar to his face.

"Of course you know the effect on the public of your prison record?"

"Yes, sir. I know it well enough."

"You know that such a feeling is strong in my church?"

"No, sir, I don't know it."

"It is. I doubt if my organist will play for you. I am speaking very frankly to you now."

Victor flushed. He recalled the scene with John King when he had resented the preacher's talking to him about gambling. He also recalled John King's words, "The time may come when you will need a friend. When that time comes if you will come to me for any help I can give you it will be given as freely as the love I have for you this very moment." Instinctively his proud soul went out for help just now. He had the greatest longing to get back to his former place with the public. The great gift of his voice was just beginning to be truly seen by him in something of its true meaning. More than all, his great vanity was as strong as ever. He felt that if he could only once get a hearing his voice would triumph over prejudice.

"I have never forgotten your promise to me, Mr. King. That time I left the church."

"Yes?" John King's face lightened up eagerly. "Well, it is still good."

"I am in great need of help." No one can understand what it cost the vain Victor to say those words. John King leaped up to them like a redeemed soul launching itself out on a storm wrecked sea after a lost soul. "I will do what I can for you. There are a great many things to take into the account. For my part I will welcome you back to sing. I may have difficulty in making others see it as I do. But you shall sing next Sunday morning on my responsibility. Stanwood, has not your experience brought you into a desire for a Christian life?"

Victor trembled. If the bell had not rung that moment, followed by a hurried knocking at the study door he might have yielded his proud soul up like a child to his Father. The interruption sent him away however with only this definite impression on John King's mind-- that the experiences of the next few days might determine the future of a very sensitive and selfish nature.

When Sunday came Victor went to the church and entered the choir room by the side door. What John king had done in the two days that preceded Sunday since that interview in the study Victor never knew until long afterwards. The facts of the morning's experience in church however may be briefly described.

There was at the time in John King's church a mixed choir under the direction of the organist. When the hour for service arrived perhaps half the members of the choir were in their seats. The organist did not appear. John King waited a few minutes and then in the midst of a deadly stillness over the great audience he went to the organ himself and played the voluntary.

The service went on as if nothing unusual was taking place.

The hymns were sung and just before the sermon Victor came out and sang. John King stepped back to the organ and played the accompaniment for him. The effect of Victor's voice was the same it had always been. There was perhaps an added power because of the tension under which the entire strange service was being conducted. The anthem by the choir was omitted. The sermon was one of the best and his prayer breathed tender love for all mankind. In a great church like his there were however very many people who condemned his action in inviting Victor to sing and considered it an abuse of privilege and a mistake in every way. From the results of that, King felt the effects in some way all through his after ministry in that place.

At the close of the service when John King went back into his room to get his hat and coat, Victor met him and said,

"Mr. King, you have done your part. Made good your promise. But I can't stand it. I can't sing under these conditions."

He was rushing out when King reached out an arm and detained him. "Let me help you in any other way I can, won't you?"

Victor for reply wrung the hand held out to him and went out at once and that was the last time he ever sung in John King's church.

He went home and told Victoria.

"I'm an outcast! A felon! The world has kicked me out. I might as well die and be done with it!"

Victoria was in an agony for him.

"No! No! Victor, time will bring all right again. You must live in hope. You must try where you are not known."

"Yes and as soon as I am known, I shall be kicked out."

He brooded about the house for several days and at last one day he suddenly asked Victoria for the money that belonged to him and which the father had kept sacredly for him while he was in prison.

Victoria told her father and he at once put Victor in possession of the entire amount. Victor did not reveal his plans to any one. He took the money and was gone several days. Then he came back and Victoria who welcomed him gladly thought his manner towards her was more affectionate than at any time since the old times. He remained with her and the father and gradually his manner grew more like that of the time when he first began to sing when Victoria left him. He began to dress extravagantly. He was often away from the house for days together. He said little about his doings. But Victoria although absorbed in her profession and unusually busy at just this time, felt her heart sink within her as she slowly came to the conclusion that the old gambling passion was asserting its sway over Victor again, and out of her heart went a great prayer for deliverance.

It was at this time in her life that Victoria met Richard Bruce and Tom Howard and also became a member of the Question Class.

Richard and Tom were in charge, under King's directions, of a mission work down in the slums. They had a boy's brigade, some night classes in book-keeping and shorthand and had long been wishing to start music classes.

The three were talking it over one day when John King said,

"Boys, it just occurs to me that Miss Stanwood of the Symphony will give us one or two nights a week. The Symphony plays only three nights."

"Whey!" said Tom. "That's all right. But where are we going to get the shekels to pay for such talent?"

"I think Miss Stanwood will play for the love of it," said John King.

"Yes, she goes to the hospitals every Sunday and gives free recitals," said Richard.

"Suppose we ask her if she can give us an evening or two."

So John King went to see her and at the first mention of the proposed music classes Victoria heartily consented. At first she gave one evening a week. Later she gave two. She became intensely interested in the work. Once a month she arranged a musical and with the assistance of her friends and the co-operation of Tom and Richard she filled the hall used by the church for part of its institutional work with a great crowd of the most needy and music hungry people in all the city. She was delighted.

Getting acquainted with Tom and Richard thus, she was drawn into the Question Class, which was a source of great enjoyment to her whenever her public engagements would permit her to attend. Victoria lived a singularly retired and quiet life for one who had gained such a high place as a musician. Her father's condition required her presence at home a great deal. He was growing worse and lately he had had symptoms of failure of all his physical powers. So that at this time in her life Victoria saw very little of society except the little gatherings of the Question Class and her fashionable rabble at the music classes in the slums and her friends in the hospitals. The Question Class was a relief to her heart and mind under all the strain to which she was subjected, and whenever she had opportunity she always attended. She was specially interested in the questions the second time she was present and made up her mind to bring in a question herself at the next meeting.

"The first to-night is as follows," John King announced as soon as the class had quieted down from its usual social prelude.

Question. "When is the best time for a girl to try to reform a young man? Before she marries him or after?"

"If he is not reformed before, it is very doubtful if he ever will be after. It is to my mind a great mistake which many girls make when they think that they can reform a bad man by marrying him. Let me read you a little article recently written by Marion Harland on this subject. She says, ‘My heart aches when I think of the women who began the work of reforming with hope and laid it down with despair at the end of life that made them turn weary arms to death with a sigh of welcome. On the table before me stands the portrait of one such woman. When she was a merry hearted girl she fell in love with a handsome, brilliant young fellow whose only failure was a fondness for liquor. He loved her deeply--better than anything else in the world except drink. Nevertheless he promised to overcome even this passion for her sake. In vain did her family plead and protest. Her only answer was, "He cannot keep straight without someone to help him. I must marry him now. He needs me."

‘A few years after her marriage she died of a broken heart whispering at the last to a dear friend that she was not sorry to go but would be thankful that life was over if she were only sure that her son would not be left to her husband's care.'

"It is very seldom that a girl reforms a man by marrying him. It is an awful risk to run. I cannot safely advise any girl to run it."

Question. "To what extent should we praise and honor one person above another because of the greater talents of the one, when we consider the pride that honor above others engenders and the consequent want of due praise to God the giver of the talents on the part of the individual?"

"No one should be honored or praised above another because of greater talents. That is no reason for giving such honor to anyone. If a person has greater talents than others he should humbly give God, the author of every gift, all the praise, and humbly ask for wisdom to use the talent to His glory. There is a great deal of false hero worship in the world. I do not believe in bowing down to a man because he is a great author or a great musician or a great preacher or a great foot ball player, unless there is something in the way of character or moral force in him to warrant my respect and esteem. No. Praise and honor should never be given people of great talents simply because of the talents. Especially when such praise makes the person vain and forgetful of God. Let us have less hero worship. The present age knows all sorts of superiority with out discrimination. Society gapes in admiration at the great prize fighter and the great poet and the great preacher and the great politician and the great millionaire without much outward distinction. The New York papers that praised Dr. Parkhurst for his splendid fight against Tammany and misrule contained in the same edition the same number of columns of sickening praise of the great prize fighter Corbett. Away with such hero worship. All true praise belongs to Almighty God and should not be bestowed on humanity except as it represents him in character and in service."

Question. "Don't you think people eat too much on Thanksgiving day?"

"Some people do. And then they are sorry for it afterwards, as I suspect the writer of this question is."

Question. "What is the most important part of a church service?"

"That depends on several things. Sometimes one part, sometimes another. It depends on the person also. One man thinks the sermon is the most important part. He gets more out of that than from anything else. Another man gets more out of a prayer or a hymn. That is the most important part to that man. One part of the church service ought not to be so overwhelmingly important that the other parts are of little account. I have had a man in my church ask me to omit the prayers and the scripture reading and come at once to the preaching. That was all he cared for, he said. But there were other men in the church who received more help from the prayers and music than from the preaching. Every part of a church service should be important and at different times and with different people each part will be at some time perhaps the most helpful and important."

Question. "Ought not all Christians to unite for the overthrow of the increasing drinking and drunkenness and the entire liquor business and the gambling and the oppressive combines and trusts and all such like evils?"

"Yes. And until they do so unite in a true Christian union those evils will continue to grow in power. A united Christendom is the only answer to the world's wickedness and the only remedy for its evils."

Question. "Will the resurrected body bear any resemblance to the earthly body; the youth's resurrected body to the youth's earthly body; the child's resurrected body to the child's earthly body; the aged person's resurrected body to the aged person's earthly body?"

"I don't believe we can tell. "God giveth it a body as it pleaseth him.' It will be a spiritual existence in the resurrected state. Whatever form the resurrected person shall bear we know this much. The form will be glorious, free from disfigurement, weakness, pain, and sickness. And more than all, I am convinced that whatever God pleases for the resurrected body will completely satisfy us whether it be in regard to our own selves or in regard to the children, the youth, or the old people who have gone before. More than that we may not know as yet. But that ought to be enough."

Question. "Are there any degrees of sin? In God's sight is not a little sin as wrong as a great sin?

Yes, I think there are degrees of sin. It is not as great a sin to tell a lie as to commit murder or assault on another man. The effect of sin is not so disastrous in the one case as in the other. There are infinite degrees of sin. And a little sin cannot be as wrong as a great sin in God's sight for if it were, then the little child who is guilty of being cross or deceptive would have to be classed with the man who had committed all the crimes known to the law breaker. This is true. All sin is hateful in God's sight. All sin is wrong. What we call little sins He undoubtedly calls great and would have us shun with horror what we often do with little thoughts But that does not mean that He regards all sin as equally wrong."

Question. "How can a young man who is very much in love tell whether the girl cares anything for him or not?"

I should think one way to find out would be to ask her."

Question. "Is it Christian to wear mourning for the dead? Or is it in accordance with Christ's teaching not to observe the common custom of wearing black? What did he teach about it?"

"He did not teach anything as to wearing mourning for the dead and it is my opinion that such a habit is not required by the Christian religion. I do not want my friends to mourn for me in that way or to put crape on their doors or on their hats. There is one large city in the United States where it is the custom to keep the curtains down and the blinds shut in the windows of the front room for a year after the death of one in the family and during all that time no one of the family is supposed to accept any social invitations or leave off distinct mourning apparel. This is the custom among the people of style and influence. Whatever else that may be, I cannot believe it is Christianity. Christianity fills us with hope of eternal life. Death is not the awful gloomy thing the pagans made it. There are a great many pagan things in our civilization yet and among them I call wearing mourning dress., one."

When the class went away that night Victoria asked if she might send in several questions at a time in case she was not able to come every week. John King readily granted ser leave, saying the class would relax the strictness of its rules in her special case.

It was during this week that Victoria's father began to grow worse and finally his symptoms became so serious that Victor and herself spent days and weeks of watching by his side. It was at this time also the Victor began to borrow money of her, at first in small sums, then after a little in larger amounts, until Victoria was unable to let him have what he wanted.

One day at this time she had been to see the manager on a matter of business and he had spoken of her careworn anxious appearance.

"You are working too hard. You need a vacation."

"I cannot leave father now. He needs me. But I wish Victor could get an engagement somewhere. I am worried over him."

"Ah!" thought the manager as he glanced keenly at the determined but somewhat pale and drooping little figure in black. "So there's your greatest trouble, eh? Miserable young scamp. After all that's been done for him by nature and by his sister!"

Victoria was going out when the manager called her back.

"Miss Stanwood, do you remember that two thousand dollars you paid me three years ago for that violin?"

"Yes." Victoria waited wondering a little.

"Well, I have never spent that two thousand dollars. In fact I have never cashed the check."

The manager said this in the most matter of fact tone and pulling out a small drawer in his desk he produced the check with Victoria's endorsement on the back.

"It's good yet of course," said the manager quietly as he handed it over to the astonished Victoria.

"The fund is still in deposit with accumulated interest for three years. And I'll tell you what I would do. I would draw out a thousand dollars and get Victor to go abroad with it and secure a place somewhere. He is getting into bad ways again here."

"Oh, sir!" Victoria almost broke down, "I have feared it of late. But if he could get a position. I am sure he has ambition. But his old habits--"

"Well, that's what I say," said the manager gently. "Get the boy to promise to get a new start. Let him have a part of this. Yes, I insist on your taking the check back. I acted like a brute at the time the violin was smashed and I never meant to take anything from you for it. I Knew if I didn't pretend to take it that precious brother of your would get it in time. And besides, Miss Stanwood, I happened to know that you have saved from your earnings to pay that two thousand dollars on the forged check in New York. The manager lost it through Victor, and you paid it back. I call that pretty plucky. Not many people would have done it."

Victoria flushed. She had never told anyone. The manager had heard of it from some New York friends.

"And so I want you to take this money back. You need it just now, don't you?"

"Yes," replied Victoria frankly. "And if I can persuade Victor to secure a place abroad I am sure it will be the making of him."

"Of course it will." The manager was as enthusiastic over the plan as a boy. He loved anything that had a plot in it. "You go and draw out a thousand dollars to day. Have the money ready to hand to Victor when he comes home. Will he be home to-night?"

"I think so. Yes, he has been regular lately."

"Good! Then lay the plan before him. I will give you a letter of introduction to parties in Berlin and London to give him. The affair is not very well known on the continent. Oh, we can manage it all right."

The manager's enthusiasm gave Victoria new hope.

He sat down and wrote the letters and Victoria, feeling as if in another dream took them and the check and went out.

She drew out a thousand dollars in bills of large denomination and went home. She knew Victor well enough to know that the sight of the money would impress him. She would appeal to his love for her. She would call on his ambition, she would even touch his vanity to save him and then she would give him the money and show him what a new chance it opened to him to go abroad and secure a position where his prison record would not follow him.

She thought this plan all over that evening as she sat by her father in the absence of the nurse who had been excused for a day or two on account of a death in her own home.

The night grew about her and it was very late and still Victor did not come in. Victoria was very tired. She had lost a great deal of sleep. The clock struck one and she knew that she was still awake. Then she thought she heard the half hour. She must have dropped off when the clock struck two, for the next sound she heard was one stroke of the half hour. She shook herself and rose to look at the father. As she did so she heard a noise in the next room which was her own. She instantly stepped to the door which was nearly closed and pushed it wide open. The electric light was burning there and the figure of a man was stooping over the desk where she kept her writing materials and into which she had placed the money brought home that evening. The noise she made caused the figure to rise hastily. There was no other way to leave the room except by the door, where the man stood. Before she had time to utter a word the light fell full on the man's face and she saw it was Victor standing there, with the package containing the money held fast in his right hand.

~ end of chapter 8 ~