compositions. His message was only a blurred sound in my ears. And
gradually I perceived, as the soldier gradually perceives who has been
hit by a bullet, that I was wounded.

The shock was of such severity that at first I had scarcely noticed it.
What? My aunt not going to the concert? That meant that I could not go.
But it was impossible that I should not go. I could not conceive my
absence from the concert--the concert which I had been anticipating and
preparing for during many weeks. We went out but little, Aunt Constance
and I. An oratorio, an amateur operatic performance, a ballad concert in
the Bursley Town Hall--no more than that; never the Hanbridge Theatre.
And now Diaz was coming down to give a pianoforte recital in the Jubilee
Hall at Hanbridge; Diaz, the darling of European capitals; Diaz, whose
name in seven years had grown legendary; Diaz, the Liszt and the
Rubenstein of my generation, and the greatest interpreter of Chopin since
Chopin died--Diaz! Diaz! No such concert had ever been announced in the
Five Towns, and I was to miss it! Our tickets had been taken, and they
were not to be used! Unthinkable! A photograph of Diaz stood in a silver
frame on the piano; I gazed at it fervently. I said: 'I will hear you
play the Fantasia this night, if I am cut in pieces for it to-morrow!'
Diaz represented for me, then, all that I desired of men. All my dreams
of love and freedom crystallized suddenly into Diaz.

I ran downstairs to the breakfast-room.

'You aren't going to the concert, auntie?' I almost sobbed.

She sat in her rocking-chair, and the gray woollen shawl thrown round her
shoulders mingled with her gray hair. Her long, handsome face was a
little pale, and her dark eyes darker than usual.