and call
her. She put down the violin reluctantly, and then stooped and kissed
the vibrating wood with sudden feeling.

"It is a Steiner," she said. "You know the story of Steiner's violins,
do you not? No? Some day, perhaps, I may tell you. Can you open the
desk?"

He found the key and unlocked it. There were some letters, a few
papers and memoranda, and a journal. Adam turned to the last page
written, and read:--

"Have just completed arrangements for transportation of my
effects to the mountains. Close study of various phenomena
convinces me that I may have been in error, and that the
cataclysm is much closer at hand than I have thought. Within
a few months I shall burn this book, and confess that I
should be written down an ass, or turn to it to prove myself
a prophet. From the eyrie I have chosen I expect to be able
to write the story of the coming deluge. It will be of great
value to posterity to have a calm, scientific account, quite
free from any tinge of superstition or religion. I have
to-day written my Boston skeptics, forwarding copies of my
calculations, with references to former inundations, and
reasons for believing the Rocky Mountain region the safest
at this time. All geologists agree that--"

Here the journal terminated abruptly.

Robin hardly seemed to comprehend its full significance; or possibly
she was not surprised. She touched the book as gently as if it were
the napkin over the face of the dead.

"It is not to the wise that God has revealed himself," she said
softly. "Where is the hand that wrote this? You must finish it, Adam.
Here are the blank pages waiting for such a chapter as was never
written on earth."

But Adam only looked at the half-written page unseeingly. "It is all
true, then," he muttered to himself; "it is all true." He walked away
with a painful precision of motion, almost as if he were drunk; he
neither heard nor saw anything, yet was conscious of everything, and
while he thought he had been hopeless before, he knew now that he had
never given up hope, never until that moment ceased to expect a
rescue.

Robin took her violin and went indoors. Presently he heard its liquid
notes stealing out to him, like a power unknown and divine, brushing
its fingers across his heart, the harp of a thousand strings. She
played for a long time, and when she ceased, in some strange way he
felt that he was comforted.

VI