Anne’s beautiful voice rose and fell with wonderful expression, while the music served to accentuate every word that she uttered.  Her audience sat practically spell bound, and when she uttered poor Enoch’s death cry, “A sail!  A sail!  I am saved!” there were many wet eyes throughout the assemblage.  She paused for a second before delivering the three concluding lines, and Eleanor ended on the piano with a throbbing minor chord.

There was absolute silence as the performers made their exit.  Then a perfect storm of enthusiasm burst forth.  Anne and Eleanor returned to bow again and again, but the audience refused to be satisfied, until Anne, in her clear, musical voice, made a little speech of appreciation, which was received with acclamation.

The concert drew to a triumphant close.  After Eleanor’s second solo, she repaired to the dressing room, where she was immediately surrounded by a group of admiring girls and kept so busy answering questions as to how long she had studied the violin and where, that she did not see Grace Harlowe enter the right wing with Miss Nevin and a tall, dark-haired stranger who glanced quickly about as though in search of some one.  “Where is she?” he said.  “Find her at once.  But, no, wait a moment.  She shall hear me play!  I will win the heart of my child through the music she loves, I may add one little solo to your programme?” he turned questioningly to Grace.

“Well, I should rather think so,” gasped Grace.  “It is an honor of which we never dreamed.  This concert will be recorded in Oakdale history.”

“It is well,” said the virtuoso.  “Bring me the violin of my child.  I will speak to her through it.”

Grace flew to the dressing room, where Eleanor’s violin lay in its open case upon a table near the door.  Hastily securing both violin and bow, she flitted out of the room—­without having been noticed by the girls at the further end.

“Here it is,” she breathed, as she handed it to Eleanor’s father.  “I will arrange for you to play after the Glee Club, who are just going on now.”

“I thank you,” replied the great man.  “I pray you do not announce me.  I shall need no one to accompany me.”

“It shall be as you wish,” promised Grace.

There was a moment’s wait after the Glee Club had filed off the stage, then Guido Savelli appeared, violin in hand.

A faint ripple of surprise stirred the audience.  Who was this distinguished stranger!  They could not identify him as belonging among Oakdale musicians.

The virtuoso made a comprehensive survey of the house, then placing the violin almost caressingly to his throat, began to play.

His hearers listened in growing astonishment to the exquisite sounds that he drew from the instrument.  There was a plaintive, insistent appeal in his music that was like the pleading of a human voice.  It was a pathetic cry wrung from a hungry heart.