‘Yes,’ replied Roger. ‘I got a couple of days’ holiday, so I thought I’d run over and see Ada. Is she in?’
‘Yes, she’s in. You’ll find her upstairs at her piano. The wife has gone out to tea. And look you, Roger,’ he added, drawing the young man aside, and lowering his voice, though they were alone, ‘Ada has got uncommon twiny and washed-out looking, and has taken to singing the most sentimental songs. I declare it makes me feel quite low in my mind to hear her constantly wailing and wailing. Try to cheer her up a bit.’
‘That I will!’
‘I daresay she’s just fretting a bit after you.’
Roger’s heart bounded, and fell again. It could not be so. Ada knew she needed not to fret after him. But he said, as cheerfully as he could—
‘I’ll go upstairs and find her.’
With which he went through the shop into the passage, and quickly up the stairs. As he ascended, the ‘wailing’ of which Mr. Dixon had complained became distinctly audible. It was a very, very mournful song that Ada sang, and Roger’s heart died within him as he heard it.
He opened the parlour door softly, and looked in. The piano was opposite to the door; therefore Ada, seated at it, had her back turned towards him. She had ceased to play within the last minute, and sat very still, with her hands, he noticed, dropping down at her sides, in a way that had something very painful and hopeless about it. His heart went out to her, and as she did not at first appear to notice any sound or any footstep, he walked softly up behind her; but not so softly, big and heavy as he was, and unused to treading gingerly, but that she could hear him distinctly; and he noticed that she suddenly drew her hands up, and that they were clenched, and that her shoulders heaved, as if she drew a deep breath—not as if she were surprised, Roger thought, hope beginning to beat high in his heart again, but rather as if she were very glad. She knew, then, that he was there. She recognised his footstep, and she was moved, deeply moved, by his presence.
He laid his hands upon her shoulders, and said, softly and caressingly—
‘Ada!’