Miss Bryant came in with a dish and set it on the table. She seldom helped in this way, and Judith divined the motive. Conscious that she was narrowly scanned, she tried to assume a careless air, and turned away so that the light should not fall on her face. But Lydia said nothing. She looked at Judith doubtfully, curiously, anxiously: her lips parted, but no word came. Judith began to eat as if in defiance.
Lydia hesitated on the threshold, and then went away. "Stuck-up thing!" she exclaimed as soon as she was safe in the passage. "But what has he been doing? Oh, I must and will know!"
Percival returned before Judith's time had expired, and came into the room with a grave face and eyes that would not meet hers.
"Tell me," she said.
He turned away and studied a colored lithograph on the wall. "It wasn't true," he said. "Gordon was at the last practicing, but he never said a word about this organist's situation. In fact, Bertie left before the choir separated."
"Some one else might have told him," said Judith.
There was a pause. "I fear not," said Percival, intently examining a very blue church-spire in one corner of the picture. "In fact, Miss Lisle, I don't see how any one could. There is no vacancy for an organist there—no prospect of any vacancy. I ascertained that."
Another pause, a much longer one. Percival had turned away from the lithograph, but now he was looking at a threadbare place in the carpet as thoughtfully as if he would have to pay for a new one. He touched it lightly with his foot, and perceived that it would soon wear into a hole.
"I must go back to Miss Crawford," said Judith suddenly. He bent his head in silent acquiescence. "What am I to tell her?" She lifted a book from the table, and laid it down again with a quivering hand. "Oh, it is too cruel!" she said in a low voice. "No one could expect it of me. My own brother!"
"That's true. No one could expect it."