The Bars of Iron. Ethel M. Dell

eyes. The lids flickered nervously under his gaze, but he did not relax his scrutiny.

      "Well?" he said.

      Her lips quivered. She said nothing.

      But her silence was enough. He released her abruptly and dropped back in his chair without another word.

      She sank down trembling against his knee, and there followed a most painful pause. Through the stillness there crept again the faint strains of distant music. Someone was playing the Soldiers' March out of Faust on the old cracked schoolroom piano, which was rising nobly to the occasion.

      Mr. Lorimer moved at length and turned his head. "Who is that playing?"

      "Piers Evesham," whispered Mrs. Lorimer. She was weeping softly and dared not stir lest he should discover the fact.

      There was a deep, vertical line between Mr. Lorimer's brows. "And what may Piers Evesham be doing here?" he enquired.

      "He comes often—to see Jeanie," murmured his wife deprecatingly.

      He laughed unpleasantly. "A vast honour for Jeanie!"

      Two tears fell from Mrs. Lorimer's eyes. She began to feel furtively for her handkerchief.

      "And Dr. Lennox Tudor,"—he pronounced the name with elaborate care—"he comes—often—for the same reason, I presume?"

      "He—he came to see me yesterday," faltered Mrs. Lorimer.

      "Indeed!" The word was as water dropped from an icicle.

      She dabbed her eyes and bravely turned and faced him. "Stephen dear, I am very sorry. I didn't want to vex you unnecessarily. I hoped against hope—" She broke off, and knelt up before him, clasping his hand tightly against her breast. "Stephen—dearest, you said—when our firstborn came—that he was—God's gift."

      "Well?" Again that one, uncompromising word. The vertical line deepened between her husband's brows. His eyes looked coldly back at her.

      Mrs. Lorimer caught her breath on a little sob. "Will not this little one—be just as much so?" she whispered.

      He began to draw his hand away from her. "My dear Adelaide, we will not be foolishly sentimental. What must be, must. I am afraid I must ask you to run away now as I have yet to put the finishing touches to my sermon. Perhaps you will kindly request young Evesham on my behalf to make a little less noise."

      He deliberately put her from him, and prepared to rise. But Mrs. Lorimer suddenly and very unexpectedly rose first. She stood before him, slightly bending, her hands on his broad shoulders.

      "Will you kiss me, Stephen?" she said.

      He lifted a grim, reluctant face. She stooped, slipping her arms about his neck. "My own dear husband!" she whispered.

      He endured her embrace for a couple of seconds; then, "That will do, Adelaide," he said with decision. "You must not let yourself get emotional. Dear me! It is getting late. I am afraid I really must ask you to leave me."

      Her arms fell. She drew back, dispirited. "Forgive me—oh, forgive me!" she murmured miserably.

      He turned back to his writing-table, still frowning. "I was not aware that I had anything to forgive," he said. "But if you think so—" he shrugged his shoulders, beginning already to turn the pages of his masterpiece—"my forgiveness is yours. I wonder if you would care to divert your thoughts from what I am sure you will admit to be a purely selfish channel by listening to a portion of this Advent sermon."

      "What is it about?" asked Mrs. Lorimer, hesitating.

      "My theme," said the Reverend Stephen, "is the awful doom that awaits the unrepentant sinner."

      There was a moment's silence, and then Mrs. Lorimer did an extraordinary thing. She turned from him and walked to the door.

      "Thank you very much, Stephen," she said, and she spoke with decision albeit her voice was not wholly steady. "But I don't feel that that kind of diversion would do me much good. I think I shall run up to the nursery and see Baby Phil have his bath."

      She was gone; but so noiselessly that Mr. Lorimer, turning in his chair to rebuke her frivolity, found himself addressing the closed door.

      He turned back again with a heavy sigh. There seemed to be some disturbing element at work. Time had been when she had deemed it her dearest privilege to sit and listen to his sermons. He could not understand her refusal of an offer that ought to have delighted her. He hoped that her heart was not becoming hardened.

      Could he have seen her ascending the stairs at that moment with the tears running down her face, he might have realized that that fear at least was groundless.

CHAPTER IX

       Table of Contents

      THE TICKET OF LEAVE

      Seated at the schoolroom piano, Piers was thoroughly in his element. He had a marvellous gift for making music, and his audience listened spell-bound. His own love for it amounted to a passion, inherited, so it was said, from his Italian grandmother. He threw his whole soul into the instrument under his hands, and played as one inspired.

      Jeanie, from her sofa, drank in the music with shining eyes. She had never heard anything to compare with it before, and it stirred her to the depths.

      It stirred Avery also, but in a different way. The personality of the player forced itself upon her with a curious insistence, and she had an odd feeling that he did it by deliberate intention. Every chord he struck seemed to speak to her directly, compelling her attention, dominating her will. He was playing to her alone, and, though she chose to ignore the fact, she was none the less aware of it. By his music he enthralled her, making her see the things he saw, making her feel the fiery unrest that throbbed in every beat of his heart.

      Gracie, standing beside him, watching with fascinated eyes the strong hands that charmed from the old piano such music as probably it had never before uttered, was enthralled also, but only in a superficial sense. She was keenly interested in the play of his fingers, which seemed to her quite wonderful, as indeed it was.

      He took no more notice of her admiring gaze than if she had been a fly, pouring out his magic flood of music with eyes fixed straight before him and lips that were sometimes hard and sometimes tender. He might have been a man in a trance.

      And then very suddenly the spell was broken. For no apparent reason, he fell headlong from his heights and burst into a merry little jig that set Gracie dancing like an elf.

      He became aware of her then, threw her a laugh, quickened to a mad tarantella that nearly whirled her off her feet, finally ended with a crashing chord, and whizzed round on the music-stool in time to catch her as she fell gasping against him.

      "What a featherweight you are!" he laughed. "You'll dance the Thames on fire some day. Giddy, what?"

      Gracie lay in his arms in a collapsed condition. "You—you made me do it!" she panted.

      "To be sure!" said Piers. "I'm a wizard. Didn't you know? I can make anybody do anything." There was a ring of triumph in his voice.

      Jeanie drew a deep breath and nodded from her sofa. "It's called hyp—hyp—Aunt Avery, what is the word?"

      "Aunt Avery doesn't know," said Piers. "And why Aunt Avery, I wonder?

       You'll be calling me Uncle Piers next."

      Both children laughed. "I have a special name for you," Jeanie said.

      But Piers was not attending. He cast a daring glance across the room at

       Avery who was darning stockings under the lamp.

      "Do they call you Aunt Avery because you are so old?" he enquired, as