“You have come back to us, dear Tom,” she said; “and you will never go away from us again. We all here love you, Tom. Ah, you know that nothing can change our love for you.”
“Curse Dick Sheridan! he has done it all!”
[page [313].
“Delilah—Delilah—traitress!” murmured Tom. “O Betsy, there has been no deception like mine since the days of Delilah! She told me plainly that she was tired of me—that she had never thought of me except as a nice boy—she actually called me a pretty boy! And my playing—she said that it was dreary—it gave her the vapours; she asked me to play a jig—an Irish jig, too—Irish! I told her that sooner than see my instrument desecrated I would break it across my knee. ‘Virginius, the Roman father!’ she cried, pointing a finger at me. I always thought her fingers shapely; but I saw then that they were not fingers, but talons—talons!... and I broke my violin before her, and yet she laughed.... O Delilah—Delilah!... But I shall set the scene to music that shall wring her heart, if she have one. I see clearly how it can be dealt with by a small orchestra. Handel fell lamentably short of the truth when he wrote the music to Delilah. I have the prelude in my mind. This is how it will go.”
He mechanically stretched across the sofa for the violin. Crash went the pegs, drooping with the neck by the catgut strings, against the hollow body of the instrument. He started up as if he had become aware of the disaster for the first time. For some moments he stood handling the wreck, and then he laid it down very gently on the sofa. He went with the bowed head of a father in the death-chamber of his child, to the door; but when he had opened it, and was in the act of departing, he turned and stood up straight like a man; his hands were clenched, his eyes were blazing, while he cried:
“Curse Dick Sheridan! he has done it all. Curse him! Curse him!”
He banged the door behind him, leaving the girls white and awed. They had never before witnessed a really tragic scene ending up with a curse, and they felt that it was very awful.
“Yes,” said Mr. Linley quietly, “we can all join in his prayer and say, ‘Bless Dick Sheridan! Bless Dick Sheridan!’—that will be poor Tom’s prayer in another month—perhaps another week.”
“Oh, no, no! not another week,” said Betsy. “I should be sorry to think that Tom could be himself within a week. Tom has too deep feeling for that.”