"Why, my dear child, what is the matter?" Darrell exclaimed, moving
quickly to her side.
"Oh," she cried, piteously, "how could you stop so suddenly! It was
like snapping a beautiful golden thread!" And burying her face in her
hands, her whole frame shook with sobs.
Darrell, somewhat alarmed himself, laid his hand on her shoulder in an
attempt to soothe her. In a moment she raised her head, the tear-drops
still glistening on her cheeks and her long golden lashes.
"It was childish in me to give way like that," she said, with a smile
that reminded Darrell of the sun shining through a summer shower; "but
oh, that music! It was the saddest and the sweetest I ever heard! It was
breaking my heart, and yet I could have listened to it forever!"
"It was my fault," said Darrell, regretfully; "I should not have played
so long, but I always forget myself when playing that way."
Kate's face grew suddenly grave and serious. "Mr. Darrell," she said,
hesitatingly, "I have thought very often about the sad side of your
life--since your illness, you know; but I never realized till now the
terrible loneliness of it all."
She paused as though uncertain how to proceed. Darrell's face had in
turn become grave.
"Did the violin tell you that?" he asked, gently.
She nodded silently.
"Yes, it has been lonely, inexpressibly so," he said, unconsciously
using the past tense; "but I had no right to cause you this suffering by
inflicting my loneliness upon you."
"Do not say that," she replied, quickly; "I am glad that you told
me,--in the way you did; glad not only that I understand you better and
can better sympathize with you, but also because I believe you can
understand me as no one else has; for one reason why the music affected
me so much was that it seemed the expression of my own feelings, of my
hunger for sympathy all these years."
"Have there been shadows in your life, then, too? It looked to be all
sunshine," Darrell said, his face growing tender as he saw the
tear-drops falling.
"Yes, it would seem so, with this beautiful home and all that papa does
for me, and sometimes I'm afraid I'm ungrateful. But oh, Mr. Darrell, if
you could have known my mother, you would understand! She was so
different from papa and auntie, and she loved me so! And it seems as
though since she died I've had nobody to love me. I suppose papa does in
a fashion, but he is too busy to show it, or else he doesn't know how;
and Aunt Marcia! well, you know she's good as she can be, but if she
loved you, you would never know it. I've wondered sometimes if poor
mamma didn't die just for want of love; it has seemed lots of times as
though I would!"