the haunting strains of the music that had puzzled
them before once more floated out through the open windows and they
paused, lost once again in the spell of it.

The music stopped, and they went on, hardly knowing what their next move
was to be, yet drawn irresistibly by their curiosity. Then once more
they heard the violin, but evidently the mood of the player had changed.
The melody fraught with pathos, wailing, pleading, no longer reached
them. The theme had changed--light, airy, sparkling, it reminded the
girls of fairies dancing on the grass in the moonlight.

Mollie grasped Betty's arm.

"I know that!" she cried excitedly. "It's something of Chopin's, a
nocturne, I think. Girls, I know where I heard that selection played
just that way before."

They gazed at her, their eyes asking the question before their lips
could form it.

"At the Hostess House!" cried Mollie. "Don't you remember that concert
we gave with some of the great artists?"

"That big benefit!" cried Betty excitedly. "You've got it, Mollie!
That's what I was trying to think of!"

"Sh-h," said Grace, a finger to her lips. "He has stopped playing. He
may hear us."

"All right," said Betty. "Let's get back to the trail where we can talk
this thing over."

They did not stop at the trail, however, for some memory of the danger
lurking in the woods drove them out on to the main road where they might
talk in peace.

"Now then," said Betty eagerly, as they reached the road, crowding their
horses close together and reining them in to a walk. "What do you make
of this, girls? If this man is really one of those artists that played
at that big concert, then he is famous and there is something more than
strange in his hiding up here in the woods."

"Goodness, we don't need anybody to tell us that," said Grace. "He
certainly must be in hiding for something he's done--unless he has been
disappointed in love," she added sentimentally.

"I don't believe he was ever in love with anything but his violin," said
Mollie.

"Can't somebody think of the name of the violinist that played at the
benefit?" asked Betty, who had been trying for some minutes past to
accomplish that very thing.

"It was something like Croup, I think," said Mollie, wrinkling her
forehead.

"Goodness, how romantic," said Grace, with a laugh.

"I tell you how we can find out the name," said Amy suddenly.

"How?" they questioned.

"I think I have a program, and I can send hom