Wrapping the priceless instrument carefully, he returned it to its case.
“Now,” she whispered, “now the Phantom will tell his story.” Still he did not speak.
“Perhaps,” she told herself, “he is wondering what lies in the future for him, the immediate future, when he goes down the hill to that—that place.”
She looked at his fingers. Slim, delicate, they were the fingers of a true artist. “And with these he will defend someone,” she told herself as a little thrill crept up her back. “How—how impossible that seems!
“And yet, great musicians are not cowards.” She was thinking of that celebrated Polish patriot who, having played for the rich and great of all lands, had put aside his music when his country called.
“He will not tell us tonight,” she assured herself, “The Phantom will not speak, perhaps never at all. Secrets are our own. No one has a right to pry into our lives.”
Only once during that long wait did the Phantom speak. Turning to Greta, he said, “Where are you staying on the island?”
Greta nodded at the small tent.
“But before that?”
“We have been living on the wreck of the Pilgrim.”