As a rule he played, in his own room, late into the night; but to-night the piano and violin were silent, and he sat by the window looking at the stars, in each of which he saw the beautiful face of the girl in the room below.
"She doesn't even guess it," he murmured. "She will never know that I—I love her. And that's all right; for though she wouldn't laugh at the love of a pauper with one leg in the grave, she'd pity me, and I couldn't stand that. She'd pity me and make herself unhappy over my—my folly; and she's unhappy enough as it is. I wonder what it is? As I watch her eyes, with that sad, wistful look in them, I feel that I would give the world to know, and another world on top of it to be able to help her. Sometimes I fancy that the look is a reflection of that in my own eyes, and that would mean that she loved some one as I love her. Is that the meaning? Is there some one of whom she is always thinking as I think of her? The look was in her eyes while I was playing to-night; I saw it as I have seen it so often."
He sighed, and hid his face in his long, thin hands.
"They paint love as a chubby, laughing child," he mused bitterly. "They should draw him as a cruel, heartless monster, with a scourge instead of a toy dart in his hands. If I wrote a love song, it should be the wail of a breaking heart. Only two months! It seems as if I had known her for years. Was that look always in her eyes? Will it always remain there? Oh, God! if I could change it, if I could be the means——Yes; I'd ask for nothing more, nothing better, but just to see her happy. They might carry my coffin down the stairs as soon as they pleased afterward."
He stretched out his hand for his violin, but drew his hand back.
"Not to-night. They are talking over the brother's slice of luck, and I won't break in upon their joy. Good night, my love—who never will be mine."
Every evening Dick came home with fresh items of information about the work to be done at Anglemere, and Nell began to catch something of the excitement of his anticipation.
Sometimes Falconer came down to listen, and he tried to hide the pain the prospect of their departure cost him, as now and again he joined in the discussion of their plans; but more often he sat gazing out of the window, and stealing glances at the beautiful face as it bent over some needlework for Dick or herself—more often for Dick.
But one night—it was the night before they were to start—he almost betrayed himself.