He turned his head and his eyes caught sight of Diotti's violin case resting on the center table. He staggered from the chair and went toward it; opening the lid softly, he lifted the silken coverlet placed over the instrument and examined the strings intently. "I am right," he said; "it is wrapped with hair, and no doubt from a woman's head. Eureka!" and the old man, happy in the discovery that his surmises were correct, returned to his chair and his toddy. He sat looking into the fire. The violin had brought back memories of the past and its dead. He mumbled, as if to the fire, "she loved me; she loved my violin. I was a devil; my violin was a devil," and the shadows on the wall swayed like accusing spirits. He buried his face in his hands and cried piteously, "I was so young; too young to know." He spoke as if he would conciliate the ghastly shades that moved restlessly up and down, when suddenly--"Sanders, don't be a fool!" He ambled toward the table again. "I wonder who made the violin? He would not tell me when I asked him to-night; thank you for your pains, but I will find out myself," and he took the violin from the case. Holding it with the light slanting over it, he peered inside, but found no inscription. "No maker's name--strange," he said. He tiptoed to the foot of the stairs and listened intently; "he must be asleep; he won't hear me," and noiselessly he closed the door. "I guess if I play a tune on it he won't know." He took the bow from its place in the case and tightened it. He listened again. "He is fast asleep," he whispered. "I'll play the song I always played for her--until," and the old man repeated the words of the refrain: "Fair as a lily, joyous and free, Light of the prairie home was she; Every one who knew her felt the gentle power Of Rosalie, the Prairie Flower." He sat again in the arm-chair and placed the violin under his chin. Tremulously he drew the bow across the middle string, his bloodless fingers moving slowly up and down. The theme he played was the melody to the verse he had just repeated, but the expression was remorse. * * * Diotti sat upright in bed. "I am positive I heard a violin!" he said, holding one hand toward his head in an attitude of listening. He was wide awake. The drifting snow beat against the window panes and the wind without shrieked like a thousand demons of the night. He could sleep no more. He arose and hastily dressed. The room was bitterly cold; he was shivering. He thought of the crackling logs in the fire-place below. He groped his way along the darkened staircase. As he opened the door leading into the sitting-room the fitful gleam of the dying embers cast a ghastly light over the face of a corpse.