It was nearly six weeks now since Hilda had touched the piano. But to-day Robert had gone with the waggon into the village, and she was alone on the ranch. She had been reading some of her home letters, and looking at some photographs of Canterbury and Winchester, half deciding to frame them, and finally concluding to put them away. She opened the piano, and placed her music on the stand. She chose a volume of Chopin, another of Schumann, and some pieces by Brahms and Grieg. She played well. Her touch was firm and virile, but wanting in tenderness. She played one of Chopin’s Impromptus and one of his Ballades, and after that she passed on to his Nocturnes. She stopped now and again and covered her face with her hands. She was quite tearless. Then she played both of Brahms’ Rhapsodies, and some numbers out of Schumann’s Carnèval. She leaned back in her chair, looking almost like a statue. Her fingers sought the notes once more, and she played Grieg’s _Einsamer Wanderer_, which is so intensely sad. “Jesse Holles would like that,” she said to herself; “but I could never play it to him.” She paused, and her hands rested insensibly on the keys. “Oh, I must have been mad,” she said, with something like a sob, “to have so much and to give it all up, _and for what_? Ah, if one could only free oneself!” She drifted into Schumann’s Kinderscenen, choosing unconsciously the saddest numbers, and then she struck the arpeggio chords and began his most wonderful Nachtstück. [Illustration: “HILDA’S SELF-CONTROL BROKE DOWN COMPLETELY.”] It is fraught with melancholy, regret, longing, pity--and what else besides? But surely it is idle work to describe beautiful music. As we play and as we listen, if we are lovers of music, we use our own interpretation; we weave our own feelings, our own emotions, our own aspirations and regrets into it, and lo! for the moment we have made it our own language.... Before Hilda had reached the closing phrases of the Nachtstück, her self-control broke down completely. She nestled up to the piano, her arms resting on the finger-board, her head bowed over them. She sobbed unceasingly. The tears streamed unheeded from her eyes. There seemed to be no end to the sobbing, no end to the tears. But at last she raised herself, and clasped her hands together at the back of her neck, and looked up. Her husband was standing in the doorway. “Hilda!” he cried, and he advanced a step, his arms extended.