"Did the violin tell you that?" he asked, gently.
She nodded silently.
"Yes, it has been lonely, inexpressibly so," he said, unconsciously using the past tense; "but I had no right to cause you this suffering by inflicting my loneliness upon you."
"Do not say that," she replied, quickly; "I am glad that you told me,—in the way you did; glad not only that I understand you better and can better sympathize with you, but also because I believe you can understand me as no one else has; for one reason why the music affected me so much was that it seemed the expression
of my own feelings, of my hunger for sympathy all these years."
"Have there been shadows in your life, then, too? It looked to be all sunshine," Darrell said, his face growing tender as he saw the tear-drops falling.
"Yes, it would seem so, with this beautiful home and all that papa does for me, and sometimes I'm afraid I'm ungrateful. But oh, Mr. Darrell, if you could have known my mother, you would understand! She was so different from papa and auntie, and she loved me so! And it seems as though since she died I've had nobody to love me. I suppose papa does in a fashion, but he is too busy to show it, or else he doesn't know how; and Aunt Marcia! well, you know she's good as she can be, but if she loved you, you would never know it. I've wondered sometimes if poor mamma didn't die just for want of love; it has seemed lots of times as though I would!"
"Poor little girl!" said Darrell, pityingly. He understood now the wistful, appealing look of the brown eyes. He intended to say something expressive of sympathy, but the right words would not come. He could think of nothing that did not sound stilted and formal. Almost unconsciously he laid his hand with a tender caress on the slender little white hand lying near him, much as he would have laid it on a wounded bird; and just as unconsciously, the little hand nestled contentedly, like a bird, within his clasp.
A few days later Darrell heard from Walcott the story of Harry Whitcomb's love for his cousin. It had been reported, Walcott said, in low tones, as though imparting a secret, that young Whitcomb was hopelessly in love with Miss Underwood, but that she seemed rather indifferent to his attentions. It was thought, however, that the old gentleman had favored the match,
as he had given his nephew an interest in his mining business, and had the latter lived and proved himself a good financier, it was believed that Mr. Underwood would in time have bestowed his daughter upon him.