"Yes," whispered the young caretaker, in answer to Marise's look of bewilderment, "she doesn't remember you were here yesterday. She often imagines you are with her when she is quite alone. We hear her talking happily to you. And now she does not know the difference between you and her own daughter who died. No, she will never know if you just slip away now. She will never know that you came or that you are not still here." When Marise went quietly out at the gate she left Jeanne dozing in her chair under the plane-trees, dozing, and waking to talk lovingly to the two little girls who had both died so long ago. * * * * * She had learned in the village that Mlle. Hasparren was no longer teaching in Bayonne, had gone back to her own little hill-town in the Pyrenees. Marise knew the way there very well, having spent many a week-end and vacation with Mlle. Hasparren in the old days. The boy from the farm where Jeanne was living chanced to have an errand that took him over the pass and down into that valley. On an impulse Marise asked to go with him. She stowed her valise away under the plank seat and scrambled up beside the bullet-headed boy in the blue beret. How it all took her back to her childhood! The little two-wheeled cart flew off behind the swift small horse, rattling and jolting up hill and down, just as when she and Mlle. Hasparren had gone off together. At the beginning of the long steep road up to the divide, she and the boy got out and walked, her shoes soon powdered white with dust. How dusty Mlle. Hasparren's shoes had been the day they stood waiting in the station...! They plunged down the other side into the green, poplar-planted valley with every home, every turn of the road as it had been. They stopped at the tiny, white-washed cabin, with its leafy atrium of sycamores. As the boy drove away and the sound of his rattling wheels died to silence, Marise heard from within the first notes of the Sonata in G, the one she had first studied with Mlle. Hasparren. She went in without knocking, sure that the little home contained no servant, and there sat Mlle. Hasparren, her hair several shades whiter, her black dress several degrees shabbier, her quiet worn face and steady eyes bent lovingly over the keys. The music was like the very sound of her voice. They sat up late that night talking--Marise must tell all about Rome and the old Visconti, as legendary a figure to Mlle. Hasparren as Paganini; and Mlle. Hasparren must tell how she came to leave her city-school and go back to the little mountaineers in the rough, plain village class-room. "I seemed to feel nearer to them," she said, not knowing very well how to tell why she had, "and I felt a great longing for my mountains and my own old home. And they need music here. Do you remember Father Armandariz?"