A new light came into her face -
I did not know then what it meant.
'Will you let me call upon you before I leave - may I?' He turned to
me while she stood silent. 'I wish to see your father,' he added.
'Certainly,' she answered, blushing, 'you may come - if you care to
come.
The musician had begun to thrum the strings of his violin. We
turned to look at him. He still sat in his chair, his ear bent to the
echoing chamber of the violin. Soon he laid his bow to the strings
and a great chord hushed every whisper and died into a sweet, low
melody, in which his thought seemed to be feeling its way through
sombre paths of sound. The music brightened, the bow went faster,
and suddenly 'The Girl I Left Behind Me' came rushing off the
strings. A look of amazement gathered on the elder's face and
deepened into horror. It went from one to another as if it had been
a dish of ipecac. Ann Jane Foster went directly for her things, and
with a most unchristian look hurried out into the night. Half a
dozen others followed her, while the unholy music went on, its
merry echoes rioting in that sacred room, hallowed with memories
of the hour of conviction, of the day of mourning, of the coming of
the bride in her beauty.
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