_Chapter 2_


Siegmund's violin, desired of Helena, lay in its case beside Siegmund's
lean portmanteau in the white dust of the lumber-room in Highgate. It
was worth twenty pounds, but Beatrice had not yet roused herself to sell
it; she kept the black case out of sight.

Siegmund's violin lay in the dark, folded up, as he had placed it for
the last time, with hasty, familiar hands, in its red silk shroud. After
two dead months the first string had snapped, sharply striking the
sensitive body of the instrument. The second string had broken near
Christmas, but no one had heard the faint moan of its going. The violin
lay mute in the dark, a faint odour of must creeping over the smooth,
soft wood. Its twisted, withered strings lay crisped from the anguish of
breaking, smothered under the silk folds. The fragrance of Siegmund
himself, with which the violin was steeped, slowly changed into an
odour of must.

Siegmund died out even from his violin. He had infused it with his life,
till its fibres had been as the tissue of his own flesh. Grasping his
violin, he seemed to have his fingers on the strings of his heart and of
the heart of Helena. It was his little beloved that drank his being and
turned it into music. And now Siegmund was dead; only an odour of must
remained of him in his violin.

It lay folded in silk in the dark, waiting. Six months before it had
longed for rest; during the last nights of the season, when Siegmund's