"You shall teach me," he said.
"A hopeless task, Tom! And you really have some voice if you only had any ear."
"Oh," said Tom, putting up his hands, as if taking her words literally.
"Oh," said Elsie, with a shriek, "they prove your race beyond a doubt; don't fear."
Tom laughed, good-natured as ever.
"But come in," he urged; "you will get cold, with nothing on your head."
"You are not to become a Molly," said Elsie.
"I won't," replied Tom, "nor a Betty, nor any other atrocity; only just come in, like a duck."
Elsie allowed herself to be persuaded for once, and they went into the house, seating themselves at the piano in the solitary music-room, enjoying the hour after their own fashion, with no apparent perception of the shadows which lay upon the hearts of the husband and wife in that darkened home.
Some time after Elsie had gone, Mellen returned to his wife's chamber. She lay with one hand partially over her face, but was watching him all the while; there was an eager expression in her eyes, as if she longed to have him go away, but was afraid to express the wish.