“Ah, Daniel,” I cried, “be fair with me—you have not been fair! Why should you shrink from me as if I were a base person? What harm could it do, even if I did not understand you? I cannot help it—the effect of this thing upon me; I am a grown man, and yet you have turned me into a child again. If you were to tell me about ghosts, I think I should take it for the truth.” “Ah,” said my brother. “Yes, even that!” I cried. “But you think I am not worthy even to guess at your life and your knowledge—no, do not try to stop me, I know that this is the fact! If it were not so, you would trust to love—you would not cast me away from you, you would do what you could!” “Be still! Be still!” he whispered. “Do not speak to me that way—I will do what I can—I will tell you what I am able.” For a long time he sat with knit brows. Then at last he began his story. “I go back,” he said, “to the time when I first landed on this island. The ship was wrecked upon the bar just ahead of us; and later, when the sea fell, we set to work to save from it as much as we could. The voyage had restored my health, and I had my violin; and when I ascertained that the place sheltered no wild beasts or men, I was myself well content to remain as long as might be necessary. I had no doubt that some ship would appear in the end; and meanwhile there was nothing to trouble me, except the enforced companionship of men who did not understand me. In the end, I escaped from that trouble with the plea that if I took up my residence at the other side of the island I could better watch the sea; and so I built a tiny hut, and was, I think, as happy as I had ever been before. “But as the months passed by and no vessel appeared, the situation changed. I perceived that sooner or later my violin would be useless; and about the same time the sailors came to me to say that they had decided to rig a boat with a sail, and endeavor to reach some inhabited island. It was the time of quiet seas, and they preferred to run the risk to remaining longer in isolation. “I was then called upon to make the great decision. Should I chance my life with the rest, or should I trust to the certainty that some day a vessel would appear, and meanwhile devote myself to the work which loomed before me—the living of my life, the seeking of the power which I felt to be hidden in me, without any external assistance or reference whatever? Perhaps had I seen the twenty years before me, I should have shrunk from the task; but, as it was, I chose what was to be the bolder, to my companions the more timid, course. “After that, of course, there could be no halfway measures. I had to make good my purpose; I had to face either absolute victory or absolute defeat. As I had expected, my violin soon became useless, and, no ship appearing, I perceived in the end that I had to give up that thought, too.