Anne and Vittorio looked at each other in surprise. "A violin," Anne murmured, and listened. The exquisite tones hummed an air unfamiliar to her ears, an air at once heart-breaking and unspeakably beautiful. "How lovely!" A shade of sadness crept over her face. "The man certainly knows how to play," she clasped her hands closely. The sound of a violin still moved her to the marrow. The gorgeous dragoman turned about abruptly. "Ah, Madame, ze music please 'er? Zat ees ze mad Englissman." "The mad Englishman?" "Ah, yes. 'E is great artiste. But 'e is seek, very seek. He 'ave ze consump', you know. Eet ees very bad. 'E spit zee blood. 'E seet all day outside 'e's 'ouse and play ze veolon, and never speak to no ones. 'E's man, 'e good friend mine, 'e tell me." Hands still clasped together nervously, Anne leaned forward. "What is his name?" "'Ees name? I forget eet. Very strange for Englis name. More like ze Russie. Pe, Pet, but I forgot how eet finis!" Pale beneath her large hat, Anne prodded him almost angrily. "Try to think, Abdul. Is--is it Petrovskey?" The dragoman beamed. "Ah, yes, zat ees eet. Per'aps Madame, she 'ave 'eard of 'eem?" Speechless, Anne nodded. Her long white throat worked spasmodically. Vittorio put an arm about her quivering shoulders. "Cara mia, perhaps it is not the same man at all. Do not grieve, dearest." She shook her head, while the music rose to a crescendo, and stopped momentarily. "I'm almost sure it must be, Vittorio. Don't you remember reading in the paper over a year ago that he had retired from the concert stage on account of ill health? And that I wanted to write to him, but decided that after all these years it would be better not to?" Vittorio nodded. A look of suffering crept into his eyes. "Perhaps you are right, Anne. Maybe it is Petrovskey. What do you want to do? Would you like to get off and see him?" She looked at her husband with startled eyes. Was she to see Alexis again after all these years? Did she have the courage to reopen old wounds? He might be horribly changed from the boy she had known. Illness plays such cruel tricks with one. And she wanted so frightfully to remember him as she had seen him last, when he left her garden over ten years ago. Then his beauty had been triumphant. Aureoled by setting sun, his indelible image had stamped itself upon her memory. Vittorio's eyes rested upon her pityingly. "Darling, I know it will be hard. If you don't feel able to face it, you mustn't force yourself." "But if he is ill and lonely?" Her eyes wandered up the garden bank almost fearfully. She turned a pleading face toward her husband. "Vittorio, help me! What shall I do? Do you think seeing me again might do him harm if he is not well?" Honesty conquering fear, he shook his head. "Why should it? It may even be good for him. Come coraggio, Anne!"