any more. I'll come whenever you want me, night or day, to play, to
read--or anything. Only speak, and I'll come."

"How good you are!" he murmured, gratefully. "No, please don't let go of
my hand." In some inexplicable fashion strength seemed to flow to him
from her.

"I think you'll be glad to know," she said, "how sympathetic everybody
has been. Strangers stop us on the street to ask for you, and people
telephone every day. Down in the library, there's a pile of letters that
would take days to read, and many of them have foreign stamps. It makes
one feel warm around the heart, for it brings the ideal of human
brotherhood so near."

He sighed and his face looked haggard. The brotherhood of man was among
the things that did not concern him now. The weariness of the ages was
in every line of his body.

"I have been thinking," he went on, after a little, "what a difference
one little hour can make, a minute, even. Once I had everything--youth,
health, strength, a happy home, love, a dear father, and every promise
of success in my chosen career. Now I'm old and broken; health,
strength, and love have been taken away in an instant, my father is
gone, and my career is only an empty memory. I have no violin, and, if I
had, what use would it be to me without--why Rose, I haven't even
fingers to make the notes nor hands to hold it."

Rose could bear no more. She sprang to her feet with arms outstretched,
all her love and longing swelling into infinite appeal. "Oh Boy!" she
cried, "take mine! Take my hands, for always!"