"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
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.