Her mere name called up a vivid vision of her beauty, a remembrance of the infinite compassion in her voice when she had knelt beside him, soothing and strengthening him by some miracle of womanly intuition, urging him to make allowance for his wife's distress.
A sudden glow thrilled through him from head to foot. He stirred slightly; and tried, without success, to turn in his chair. It was as if the compelling spirit of her had dragged him back from the brink of nothingness to renewed life, to the assurance that in his utmost loneliness he was not—nor ever would be—alone. And, in that moment of awakening, the voice of sympathy came to him—tender, uplifting, clear as speech.
Honor Meredith had begun to play.
By way of prelude she chose a piece of pure organ music—the exquisitely simple Largo of the Second Sonata. From that she passed on to the Pastoral itself, opening it, as of custom, with the fine Andante movement—the presage of coming storm.
None among all that wondrous thirty-two is so saturate with open-air cheerfulness and vigour as this Sonata, aptly christened the Pastoral. Here we are made accomplices of Nature's moods, and set in the midst of her voices. Here, in swift succession, are storm and sunshine; falling rain-drops; the plash and ripple of mountain streams; bird notes of rare verisimilitude, from the anxious twitterings before the thunder-shower, to the chorus of thanksgiving after it has swept vigorously past. And Theo Desmond, lying in semi-darkness, with pain for his sole comrade, knew that the hand of healing had been again outstretched to him,—not all in vain.
The Sonata ended in a brisk ripple of sound; and for a while Honor sat motionless, her shapely hands resting on the keyboard as if awaiting further inspiration.
Desmond moved again uneasily. He wondered what her unfailing intuition of his need would lead her to play next; and even as he wondered, expectancy was lulled into a great rest by the measured tranquillity of Beethoven's most stately and divine Adagio—the Moonlight Sonata.
There are some people who get deeper into a piano than others, who breathe a living soul into the trembling wires. The magic of Honor's music lay in this capacity; and she exerted it now to the limit of her power.