Bent on their joyful mission, the girls approached the lonely little cabin in the woods swiftly. As they came near they heard again that same hauntingly sweet melody that had so moved them the first time they had heard it.
Yet now that they understood the pain that prompted the rendering of that exquisite harmony, it seemed too bitterly sad to be beautiful, and their hearts ached dully in sympathy with Paul Loup's despair.
Tears were in Betty's eyes, but there was a smile on her lips, as she pushed open the door of the little shack and stood waiting on the threshold.
The musician saw her, ended the throbbing melody with a crash of discord, and gazed at her mutely. In all his tall, gaunt body only his glowing eyes seemed really alive, but in those eyes there was a welcome that gave Betty courage.
"Look!" she cried, holding out the paper to him. "This is from your manager. Read it—and see that you are innocent."
Slowly the man laid down his violin and bow, slowly he took the paper from Betty's trembling fingers. Like a man in a daze he read it through—then read it through again.
"I did not kill him—my brother," he murmured aloud. "My brother—that I love—I did not kill him. He is alive—he is well. Mon Dieu, then I am free! Paul Loup—he is not a murderer—a hunted thing. He is again the artist—free—free——" His voice, which had been gradually rising as the truth bore in upon him, rose to a jubilant shout and he threw out his arms passionately as though to encompass them all in his newly found love of life. "The world——" he said brokenly, "the world is very beautiful!"
Silently the girls rode through the sunshine and shadow-filled forest, their hearts filled with a happiness so poignant it seemed almost pain.
"What a wonderful, wonderful summer!" breathed Mollie. "I don't believe we have ever had one like it, girls."