Both girls make a dash for it, but realizing the imminence of a collision, each suddenly stops short, thinking it is the other's catch, and the ball drops harmlessly between them, just as Joan arrives at the other end with the run to her credit, and the match won for St. Cyprian's by four wickets.
The time was drawing very near now for Herr Hoffmann's Students' Concert, and whenever Mildred thought about it her heart descended somewhere into the region of her boots. The Professor had been giving her lessons at his own house in addition to those she took at St. Cyprian's, and with the one exception of the day of the cricket match, she had attended every Saturday afternoon at the Philharmonic Hall to practise the "Frühlingslied" with the students' orchestra. For the first time in her life she was really working hard, and sometimes she almost astonished herself at the progress she made. Technical difficulties, which before had seemed impossibilities, smoothed themselves away, and her supple fingers began to acquire a new mastery over her instrument. That she needed all her best efforts she knew well. The fear lest she should fail in her piece haunted her like a bad dream. The Professor was not easy to satisfy. His ideal was so high that she continually fell short of it, and in spite of incessant practising and extra music lessons, so hard seemed the task which she was attempting that she sometimes felt inclined to fling down her violin in despair, and give up the concert altogether.
The one thing that upheld her was the remembrance of the story of her father's life which her aunt had told her. The unknown father, whom she had lost when she was still only a baby, had left her his Stradivarius as a legacy, with his dying injunction to make the good use of it which he had once hoped to do himself. The violin was her one link with him. Often now, when she practised it, she thought how his fingers had played on it before, and what beautiful music they must have brought from it. To respect his last wish seemed to her a solemn obligation. What he could not accomplish himself he had charged her to perform, and it was a trust which she must strive faithfully to fulfil. She felt as if her success might compensate for his failure. The talent which he had trifled with she must foster to the utmost of her power. The Comte's secret (solved, alas, too late!) should be her watchword for the future. Her father's neglected genius was like a debt left owing to the general good of the world, and on her shoulders must fall the burden of paying it.