"
She lifted her violin again, threateningly. The novelist came down the
path, on a run, to seat himself upon the gray boulder.
The artist shouted with laughter. But the novelist and the girl paid no
heed to his unseemly merriment.
"Speak,"--she commanded, waving her wand,--"what hast thou done?"
"Did I not obey thy will and, under such terms as I could procure, open
for thee the treasure room of thy desire?" growled the man on the rock.
"And still," she retorted, "when I made myself subject to those terms, and
obediently looked not upon the hidden mystery--still the room of my
desires became a trap betraying me into rude hands from which I narrowly
escaped. And you--you fled the scene of your wrong-doing, without so much
as by-your-leave, and for these long weeks have wandered, irresponsible,
among my hills. Did you not say that my home was under these glowing
peaks, and in the purple shadows of these canyons? Did you think that I
would not find you here, and charm you again within reach of my power?"
"And what is thy will, good spirit?"--he asked, humbly--"tell me thy will
and it shall be done--if thou wilt but make music _only_ upon the
instrument that is in thy hand.
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