Nora O’Malley sang the concluding line of her song, favored the audience with a saucy little nod and made her exit.

“Come on, Eleanor,” said Jessica.  “It’s our turn.”

Well toward the back of the hall sat Miss Nevin, wearing a look of mingled anxiety and pain.  Beside her sat a dark, distinguished man in the prime of life, who never took his eyes off the stage.

As one of the senior girls who had charge of the programme stepped forward and announced, “Solo, Miss Eleanor Savell,” he drew a deep breath, and such a look of longing crept into his eyes that Miss Nevin understood for the first time something of the loneliness of which he had written.

He covered his eyes with his hand as though reluctant to look.  Then the full, soft notes of the violin were carried to his ears, and with a smothered cry of exultation he raised his eyes and saw for the first time his own child in her gown of white with the instrument he loved at her throat, while her slender hand drew the bow with the true skill of the artist.

Before Miss Nevin could stop him, he had risen in his seat, saying excitedly:  “It is mia bella Edith.  She has come again.”

Then realizing what he had done, he sat down, and, burying his face in his hands, sobbed openly.

Persons around him, startled by his sudden cry, glared at him angrily for creating a commotion during Eleanor’s exquisite number, then again turned their attention to the soloist.

“I must see her.  I must see her,” he muttered over and over again.  “She is my child; mine.”

“So you shall,” whispered Miss Nevin soothingly, “but not until the concert is over.  If we tell her now, Guido, it will upset her so that she can’t appear again this evening, and she has two more numbers.”

Unabashed by the emotion he had displayed, the virtuoso wiped his eyes, and sat waiting like one in a trance for his child to appear again.

Anne and Grace were alive with curiosity as to the outcome of Anne’s suggestion.  They had eagerly scanned the house before the concert began, but had failed to locate Miss Nevin and Eleanor’s father.

“I’m going out in the audience and see if I can find them,” Grace had whispered to Anne during Nora’s song, as they stood in the wing on the opposite side from Jessica and Eleanor.

Anne had nodded silently, her attention focused upon Nora, whose singing always delighted her, and Grace, slipping quietly down to the door that led into the hall, made her way toward the back rows of seats just in time to witness Guido Savelli’s emotion at first sight of his daughter.

Back to Anne she sped with her news, and the two friends held a quiet little jubilee of their own over the success of their plot.

There was a round of applause when “Enoch Arden” was announced.  Eleanor took her place at the piano while Anne stepped forward and began the pathetic tale to the subdued strains of the music that Eleanor had fitted to it.