ise Wallace to let him marry her. A
fiddler! A million! Sounds funny," and he laughed shrilly.

He turned his head and his eyes caught sight of Diotti's violin case
resting on the center table. He staggered from the chair and went
toward it; opening the lid softly, he lifted the silken coverlet
placed over the instrument and examined the strings intently. "I am
right," he said; "it is wrapped with hair, and no doubt from a woman's
head. Eureka!" and the old man, happy in the discovery that his
surmises were correct, returned to his chair and his toddy.

He sat looking into the fire. The violin had brought back memories of
the past and its dead. He mumbled, as if to the fire, "she loved me;
she loved my violin. I was a devil; my violin was a devil," and the
shadows on the wall swayed like accusing spirits. He buried his face
in his hands and cried piteously, "I was so young; too young to know."
He spoke as if he would conciliate the ghastly shades that moved
restlessly up and down, when suddenly--"Sanders, don't be a fool!"

He ambled toward the table again. "I wonder who made the violin? He
would not tell me when I asked him to-night; thank you for your pains,
but I will find out myself," and he took the violin from the case.
Holding it with the light slanting over it, he peered inside, but
found no inscription. "No maker's name--strange," he said. He tiptoed
to the foot of the stairs and listened intently; "he must be asleep;
he won't hear me," and noiselessly he closed the door. "I guess if I
play a tune on it he won't know."

He took the bow from its place in the case and tightened it. He
listened again. "He is fast asleep," he whispered. "I'll play the song
I always played for her--until," and the old man repeated the words of
the refrain:

"_Fair as a lily, joyous and free,
Light of the prairie home was she;
Every one who knew her felt the gentle power
Of Rosalie, the Prairie Flower._"

He sat again in the arm-chair and placed the violin under his chin.
Tremulously he drew the bow across the middle string, his bloodless
fingers moving slowly up and down.

The theme he played was the melody to the verse he had just repeated,
but the expression was remorse.

* * * * *

Diotti sat upright in bed. "I am positive I heard a violin!" he said,
holding one hand toward his head in an attitude of listening. He was
wide awake. The drifting snow beat against the window panes an