The piano was in the next room, and whenever it began to sound, Lucy dropped her work into her lap and listened. At such time she had an alert, startled look. She resembled a fawn when it hears a stick snap in the forest.
We heard him leave the piano, cross the hall and go into the dining-room.
"He's hardly touched his piano in years," said Lucy. "But now he's at it in fits and starts from morning till night. Night before last when the rain began he got up and went down in his bare feet and played for hours. I had to fetch him and make him come back to bed."
Then she seemed to feel that an explanation was necessary. She bent rosily over the work, and said: "We don't want the servants to know."
Again the piano began to ripple and thunder. Again we heard John go into the dining-room.
I must have lifted an eyebrow, for Lucy said:
"Yes. I'm afraid so, but it doesn't seem to go to his head. Oh," she said, "it wrings my heart, but I haven't the right to say anything."
"Lucy," I said, "have you thought out anything since I saw you last?"
"I think in circles," she said; "one minute I'm for doing my duty to him, the next minute I can only think of myself. It can't be right for me to be his wife when I've stopped being—Oh, anything but awfully fond of him."
"You are that?"