And now Mona was unlearning the sad lesson of loving, and in its place came a new inspiration, an ambition so broad, so uplifting, so full of possibilities, that even the voice of love was stilled. At times the face of Winn would return to her, however, and always bringing a thorn. "He is what he said all his world were," she would say to herself, "selfish, fickle, and heartless. He wished to flatter and amuse me and himself as well, but that was all." And then the moment he had held her in his arms would return to give the lie to all such thoughts. At times she hoped that she might meet him some day, just to give one look of reproach and pass on without a word; and then she dreaded to do so, believing herself powerless to resist her own longings. Feeling thus a sense of the wrong he had done her, the tender looks and words he had uttered, and at last that one sweet moment,--all came back again. Put him out of her mind she could not, nor his face either. By night, thoughts of him haunted her pillow, and whenever she set foot out of their temporary home, no matter where she went, and until she was safe in it again, that peculiar dread was with her. She did not know that during all these months of her suspense, Winn Hardy, discouraged at the utter failure of his ambition and hopeless of his future, was not only doing his best to put her out of his thoughts, but battling for another foothold in life. Forget her, or the obligation whispered on Rockhaven's wave-washed cliff, he could not and did not; but in the hard grind of life and competition of wage-earning, love plays only a minor part. Even less so with Winn than most, for he distrusted all sentiment, even in himself. Few have the scope to judge another from that person's own viewpoint of needs and impulses; and Mona, untutored in the ways of man, was less competent than many. To her, the words "I love you" were a sacred obligation, far above all selfish needs and vulgar money making and, like the glittering star of fame, an inspiration. It had been sweet to her in those summer days, but the real star of fame was now rising in her horizon, and the lesser one slowly fading away. She was fast losing her old timidity, and as each day she felt herself gaining a better mastery over her violin, the darling wish of her new ambition grew stronger. And then another influence came to her aid, for phlegmatic Fritz, in whose life the mechanical duty of each evening's playing and the convivial hours with his cronies had measured his ambition, became imbued with a broader one, and that to train his pupil for public playing, and so, when thus fitted and launched in this new life under his tuition, to pose as the discoverer of a genius. And more than that, as her eyes began to work their spell upon him, the hope of love entered his heart.