A canvas stood ready upon the easel; palette, colors and brushes were at hand.

The painter was standing at the big, north window, looking up away to the mountains--the mountains that the novelist said called so insistently.

Suddenly, he turned his head to listen.

Sweetly clear and low, through the green wall of the orange-trees, came the music of that hidden violin.
As he stood there,--with his eyes fixed upon the mountains, listening to the spirit that spoke in the tones of the unseen instrument,--Aaron King knew, all at once, that the passing moment was one of those rare moments--that come, all unexpectedly--when, with prophetic vision, one sees clearly the end of the course he pursues and the destiny that waits him at its completion.

As clearly, too, he saw the other way, and knew the meaning of the vision.