Illustration: If you do not play upon it we separate forever]

The lights were lowered, a single calcium playing with its soft and
silvery rays upon his face and shoulders. The expectant audience
scarcely breathed as he began his theme. It was pity--pity molded into
a concord of beautiful sounds, and when he began the second movement
it was but a continuation of the first; his fingers sought but one
string, that of pity. Again he played, and once more pity stole from
the violin.

When he left the stage Mildred rushed to him. "You did not touch that
string; you refuse my wish?" and the sounds of mighty applause without
drowned his pleading voice.

"I told you if you refused me I was lost to you forever! Do you
understand?"

Diotti returned slowly to the center of the stage and remained
motionless until the audience subsided. Facing Mildred, whose color
was heightened by the intensity of her emotion, he began softly to
play. His fingers sought the string of Death. The audience listened
with breathless interest. The composition was weirdly and strangely
fascinating.

The player told with wondrous power of despair,--of hope, of faith;
sunshine crept into the hearts of all as he pictured the promise of an
eternal day; higher and higher, softer and softer grew the theme until
it echoed as if it were afar in the realms of light and floating o'er
the waves of a golden sea.

Suddenly the audience was startled by the snapping of a string; the
violin and bow dropped from the nerveless hands of the player. He fell
helpless to the stage.

Mildred rushed to him, crying, "Angelo, Angelo, what is it? What has
happened?" Bending over him she gently raised his head and showered
unrestrained kisses upon his lips, oblivious of all save her lover.

"Speak! Speak!" she implored.

A faint smile illumined his face; he gazed with ineffable tenderness
into her weeping eyes, then slowly closed his own as if in slumber.

***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE FIFTH STRING***

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