"It is blowing for a storm," replied the young man. "The sky was clouded over when they left. 'Tis safer for them so. The snow will cover their trail and, very likely, will keep the enemy from prowling abroad for a good many hours to come."
Mistress Beatrix crossed the room to a cupboard in the wall, and from it produced a violin. Kingswell stood by the chimney, watching her. The baronet continued his nervous pacing of the floor. The girl touched the strings here and there with skilful fingers, resined the bow, and then returned to the hearth and stood with her eyes on the fire. Suddenly she looked up at Kingswell. Her eyes were as he had never seen them before. They were full of firelight and dream. They were brighter than jewels, and yet dark as the heart of a deep water.
"Please do not stand," she said, and her voice, though free from any suggestion of indifference, sounded as if her whole being were far from that simple room. Her gaze returned to the fire. Kingswell quietly reseated himself; and at that she nestled her chin to the glowing instrument and drew the bow lightly, lovingly, almost inquiringly, across the strings. A whisper of melody followed the touch and sang clearer and more human than any human voice, and melted into the firelight.
At the first strain of the music, the baronet sat down and reclined comfortably with his head against the back of his chair. For awhile he watched his daughter intently; then he turned his eyes to the heart of the fire and journeyed far in a waking dream.
The girl played on and on, weaving enchantments of peace with the magic strings. Kingswell, leaning back with his face in the shadow, could not look away from her. The minutes drifted by unheeded behind the singing of the violin. The candles on the table flared at their sockets. The logs on the hearth broke, and the flames sprang to new life. Outside the wind raced and shouldered along the walls. And suddenly the player stilled her hand, and, without a word to either of the men, took up one of the guttering candles from the table and went quickly to her own chamber. She carried the fiddle with her against her young breast, and the bow like a wand in her hand.
Sir Ralph started and sat erect in his chair. Kingswell got to his feet with a sigh, and lifted his heavy cloak from the bench.
"I must go the rounds," he said. "Good night, sir."
With that he went out into the swirling eddies of the storm. The baronet sat still for another hour. The music had uncovered so many ghosts of joy and song, of love and hate and shame. It had rung upon past glories and called up more recent dishonours. And still another matter occupied his mind, and was finally dismissed with a smile and a yawn. It was that Beatrix had indulged in one of her deliriums of music in young Kingswell's presence, and that she had never before played in any mood but the lightest in the hearing of a stranger.
Kingswell paced beside the sentry at the drifted gate; but he kept his thoughts to the picture of the girl, the glowing fiddle, and the music and firelight that had seemed to pulse and spread together about the long room. Again he saw the candle flames leap high and waver, as if lured from their tethers by the crying of the instrument. But clearest of all was the player's face. His heart was filled to suffocation at the memory of it. Had other men seen her so beautiful? Had other men heard her soul and her dear heart singing and crying from the strings of the violin?