If I were superstitious I should say that some evil spirit then went out of the violin, and broke in his parting throes the wooden tabernacle which had so long sheltered him.

It was the last time the instrument was ever used, and that hideous chord was the last that Maltravers ever played.
I had feared that the shock of waking thus suddenly from sleep would have a very prejudicial effect upon the sleep-walker, but this seemed not to be the case.

I persuaded him to go back at once to bed, and in a few minutes he fell asleep again.

In the morning he seemed for the first time distinctly better; there was indeed something of his old self in his manner.

It seemed as though the breaking of the violin had been an actual relief to him; and I believe that on that Christmas morning his better instincts woke, and that his old religious training and the associations of his boyhood then made their last appeal.