The last sparks were barely
extinguished when she heard a cautious step on the gravel beneath her
window.
It was broad daylight, but her candle was still burning on the table at
her side, and with a quick instinctive movement she reached out her arm
and put the light out. Then she sat very still and rigid, listening. For
a while she heard only the blackbirds calling from the trees in the
garden and the throbbing music of the river. Afterward she heard the
footsteps again, cautiously retreating; and in spite of her will, in
spite of her formal disposal of the letters and the presents, she was
mastered all at once, not by pain or humiliation, but by an overpowering
sense of loneliness. She seemed to be seated high on an empty world of
ruins. She rose quickly from her chair, and her eyes fell upon a violin
case. With a sigh of relief she opened it, and a little while after one
or two of the guests who were sleeping in the house chanced to wake up
and heard floating down the corridors the music of a violin played very
lovingly and low. Ethne was not aware that the violin which she held was
the Guarnerius violin which Durrance had sent to her. She only
understood that she had a companion to share her loneliness.
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