appreciation. "I know she would enjoy the bright lights."

"We all do, in certain moods," he said. "Are you ready now?"

The voice of the violin rose to heights of ecstasy, sustained by full
chords in the accompaniment. Mingled with the joy of it, like a breath
of sadness and longing, was a theme in minor, full of question and
heartbreak; of appeal that was almost prayer. And over it all, as
always, hovering like some far light, was the call to which Rose
answered. Dumbly, she knew that she must always answer it, though she
were dead and the violin itself mingled with her dust.

Madame Bernard, still seated by the fire, stirred uneasily. Something
had come into her house that vaguely troubled her, because she had no
part in it. The air throbbed with something vital, keen, alive; the room
trembled as from invisible wings imprisoned.

Old dreams and memories came back with a rush, and the little old lady
sitting in the half light looked strangely broken and frail. The sound
of marching and the steady beat of a drum vibrated through her
consciousness and the singing violin was faint and far. She saw again
the dusty street, where the blue column went forward with her Captain at
the head, his face stern and cold, grimly set to some high Purpose that
meant only anguish for her. The picture above the mantel, seen dimly
through a mist, typified, to her, the ways of men and women since the
world began--the young knight riding forward in his quest for the Grail,
already forgetting what lay behind, while the woman knelt, waiting,
waiting, waiting, as women always have and always must.

At last the music reached its end in a low chord that was at once a