The Master's face was grey and haggard, but his eyes burned. Lynn saw what it had cost him to open this secret chamber--to lay bare this old wound. "And I," he said huskily, "I touched the Cremona!" "Yes," said the Master, sadly, "on that first day, you lifted up mine Cremona, and until to-day I have never forgiven. There has been resentment in mine old heart for you, though I have tried to put it aside. Her hands were last upon it--hers and mine. When I touched it, it was the place where her white fingers rested, where many a time I put mine kiss to ease mine heart. And you, you took that away from me!" "If I had only known," murmured Lynn. "But you did not know," said the Master, kindly; "and to-day I have forgiven." "Thank you," returned Lynn, with a lump in his throat; "it is much to give." "Sometimes," sighed the Master, "when I have been discouraged, I have been very hungry for someone to understand me--someone to laugh, to touch mine tired eyes, to make me forget with her little sweet ways. In mine fancy, I have seen it all, and more. "When I have gone down the hill to the post-office, where there has never been the letter from her, and the little children have run to me, holding out their arms that I should take them up, I have felt that the price was too high that I have paid. But all the time I have understood that on the heights one must go alone, for a time at least, with the thunders and the lightnings and the storms. If I had been given one son, I think he would have been like you, one fine tall young fellow with the honest face and the laughing ways, but you have been shielded, and I should not have done so. I should have let you grow from the start and learn all things so soon as you could." "I never knew my father," Lynn said, deeply moved, "but if I could choose, I would choose you." "So," said the Master, his eyes filling. Then their hands met in a long clasp of understanding. "Already I am the richer for it," Lynn went on, after a little. "I know now what I did not know before." The boy's face was still white, but the look of hopeless despair was merged into something which foreshadowed ultimate acceptance. The Master still held his hand. "If you are to be an artist," he said, once more, "you must not be afraid of life. You must welcome it to its utmost cross. You must take the cold, the heat, the poverty, the hunger, the burning way through the desert, the snow-clad steeps, the keen hurt, and the happiness--it is all one, for it gives you knowledge. You must know all the pain of the world, face to face, if you are to help those who bear it. Keen feelings give you the great hurt, but also, in payment, the great joy. The balance swings true. The Herr Doctor has told me this. He is most wise; he understands." "I see," answered Lynn. "I will never be afraid again."