"And the will of God thee shall do to His honour, though thee is outcast to-day. . . . But, Davy, the music-thee kept it from me."
He looked up at her steadily; he read what was in her mind.
"I hid it so, because I would not have thy conscience troubled. Thee would go far to smother it for me; and I was not so ungrateful to thee. I did it for good to thee."
A smile passed across her lips. Never was woman so grateful, never wound so quickly healed. She shook her head sadly at him, and stilling the proud throbbing of her heart, she said:
"But thee played so well, Davy!"
He got up and turned his head away, lest he should laugh outright. Her reasoning—though he was not worldly enough to call it feminine, and though it scarce tallied with her argument—seemed to him quite her own.
"How long have we?" he said over his shoulder. "The sun is yet five minutes up, or more," she said, a little breathlessly, for she saw his hand inside his coat, and guessed his purpose.
"But thee will not dare to play—thee will not dare," she said, but more as an invitation than a rebuke. "Speech was denied me here, but not my music. I find no sin in it."
She eagerly watched him adjust the flute. Suddenly she drew to him the chair from the doorway, and beckoned him to sit down. She sat where she could see the sunset.
The music floated through the room and down the hillside, a searching sweetness.