"No," he answered, "I don't want to go to sleep. I want to hear Rose
play."

So he waited, persistently wide awake. Sharpened by illness and pain,
his hearing was phenomenally acute; so much so that even a whisper in
the next room was distinctly audible. He heard the distant rumble of
wheels, approaching steadily, and wondered why the house did not tremble
when the carriage stopped. He heard the lower door open softly, then
close, a quick, light step in the living room, the old-fashioned piano
stool whirling on its rusty axis, then a few slow, deep chords prefacing
a familiar bit of Chopin.

He turned to the nurse, who sat in her low rocking-chair at the window.
"I beg your pardon. I thought you were not telling me the truth."

The young woman only smiled in answer. "Listen!"

From downstairs the music came softly. Rose was playing with the
exquisite taste and feeling that characterised everything she did. She
purposely avoided the extremes of despair and joy, keeping to the safe
middle-ground. Living waters murmured through the melody, the sea surged
and crooned, flying clouds went through blue, sunny spaces, and birds
sang, ever with an unfailing uplift, as of many wings.

Allison's calmness insensibly changed, not in degree, but in quality, as
the piano magically brought before him green distances lying fair
beneath the warm sun, clover-scented meadows and blossoming boughs.
"Life," he said to himself; "life more abundant."