"What did?" she asked.
"The thought of you," he answered, "and your belief in me. The knowledge that you loved me and had faith in me made me swear to keep the flag flying, don't you know. It wasn't the thought that God was in His heaven and all that. As a matter of fact, all seemed very wrong with the world."
Gwendolen checked him.
"You ought to have remembered that He gave you the love, if it meant so much," she said. "Sometimes I've thought that if Melville had really loved somebody it would have made all the difference and helped to make a good man of him."
"Possibly," Ralph answered. "The only thing Melville ever loved was money—that was at the bottom of it all."
"And so he had nothing to take him away from himself," Gwendolen said. "Even if he hadn't been loved in return, the affection would have made him unselfish, or at any rate less selfish."
She spoke with obvious ignorance of the fact that if there was one individual for whom Melville felt anything like affection it was herself, and Ralph looked at her in some surprise, for on more than one occasion he had been very much aware of it. Melville deserved some credit for not having told the girl of it, for to love and not to be loved in return by Gwendolen was enough to make any man incline to go to the bad, and it looked as if Melville had acted better than usual in refraining from revealing his affection and trying to cut his brother out. But the whole thing was unutterably painful still, and his heart ached when his thoughts turned, as they often did, to his last sight of Melville standing in the witness box, so handsome, so calm and self-possessed, apparently so eager in his desire to help Ralph out of danger, and all the while betraying him with a kiss. His wife heard his sigh and stopped it with a caress, and the touch of her lips brought back happiness. So they remained in silent content, thanking God that the trouble was overpast and that they were together and at home.
The faint notes of distant music were borne to them upon the breeze and died away again, but the sound suggested something else to Gwendolen.
"Ralph, I meant to ask you before. Will you give me Melville's violin?"
"Of course," he answered, "if you want it. But you can't play it, can you?"