'Yes; pack it up in a silk handkerchief, and put it in the case, and let me take it with me, or otherwise you will read to no purpose. You will begin to play as soon as I am out of the room. You are so accustomed to it now you cannot resist if you have it here. One cannot get over that kind of thing unless someone helps one; it gets the mastery over one.' Hede appeared unwilling. 'This is madness, you know,' he said. 'No, Hede, it is not. You know you have inherited it from the Squire. It runs in your blood. Ever since you have been your own master here in Upsala you have done nothing else but play. You live here in the outskirts of the town simply not to disturb anyone by your playing. You cannot help yourself in this matter. Let me have the violin.' 'Well,' said Hede, 'before I could not help playing, but now Munkhyttan is at stake; I am more fond of my home than of my violin.' But Alin was determined, and continued to ask for the violin. 'What is the good of it?' Hede said. 'If I want to play, I need not go many steps to borrow another violin.' 'I know that,' Alin replied, 'but I don't think it would be so bad with another violin. It is your old Italian violin which is the greatest danger for you. And besides, I would suggest your locking yourself in for the first few days--only until you have got fairly started.' He begged and begged, but Hede resisted; he would not stand anything so unreasonable as being a prisoner in his own room. Alin grew crimson. 'I must have the violin with me,' he said, 'or it is no use at all.' He spoke eagerly and excitedly. 'I had not intended to say anything about it, but I know that it concerns more than Munkhyttan. I saw a young girl at the Promotion Ball in the spring who, people said, was engaged to you. I don't dance, you know, but I liked to watch her when she was dancing, looking radiant like one of the lilies of the field. And when I heard that she was engaged to you, I felt sorry for her.' 'Why?' 'Because I knew that you would never succeed if you continued as you had begun. And then I swore that she should not have to spend her whole life waiting for one who never came. She should not sit and wither whilst waiting for you. I did not want to meet her in a few years with sharpened features and deep wrinkles round her mouth----' He stopped suddenly; Hede's glance had rested so searchingly upon him. But Gunnar Hede had already understood that Alin was in love with his _fiancée_. It moved him deeply that Alin under these circumstances tried to save him, and, influenced by this feeling, he yielded and gave him the violin. When Alin had gone, Hede read desperately for a whole hour, but then he threw away his book. It was not of much good his reading. It would be three or four years before he could be finished, and who could guarantee that the estate would not be sold in the meantime?