He went on playing. When he ceased, again she turned to him--with passionate eyes.
"I never heard any one play like you before."
"It's because I'm in the mood."
He played on. It seemed to her that he spoke to her out of the soul of music. She sat still and listened. Her heart-strings tightened, her pulses throbbed, her cheeks burned; every nerve in her frame was on the alert. Never had such things been said to her before. She could have cried--and would have cried, if she had dared. The message breathed to her by Bruce Graham's playing told of a world of which she, unconsciously, had dreamed.
He played; and she sat and listened, in the firelight, till Ella came home to tea.
And with Ella came Jack Martyn.
CHAPTER XII
[TOM OSSINGTON'S LAWYER]
It was while they were seated at table that Bruce Graham told them of the result of his investigations. Although, for some reason, the subject had not been mentioned when Madge and he had been alone together, that young lady showed herself alert and eager enough then. Nor, in that respect, was Ella behind her friend, while Martyn concealed an interest which was probably equal to theirs under ponderous attempts at jocularity.
It was Jack who brought him to the point.