"Why, Mr. Richard Alton?"
"Because I am going to make you promise to play your fiddle again."
"No, I am happier when I forget my fiddle."
"Why, Donelle Morey, are you happier?"
"You would not understand."
"I'd try. Come, sit here on this log. The sun strikes it and we will be warm."
Donelle stepped off the narrow path and reached the log, while Norval sat down beside her.
"Now tell me about that fiddle."
"Once," Donelle raised her eyes to his, "once, for a long time I stayed, you would not know if I told you where, but it was near here and yet so far away. Everything was different—I thought I belonged there and I was the happiest girl, and had such big dreams. They taught me to play; a wonderful old man said I could play and I did. A dear lady opened the way for me to go on! Then something happened. It was just a word, but it told me that I did not belong in that lovely place, and if I went on I would be—cheating somebody; somebody who had let me have my life and never asked anything, who never would, but who would go on, making the best of——" Donelle's eyes were full of tears, her throat ached.
"Of what, little girl?"