Miss Evelina sighed, deeply, and the Piper put his hand on hers.
"I'm not meaning to reproach you," he said, kindly, "though, truly, I do think you have played wrong. In any music I have heard, there has never been any one instrument that has played all the time and sadly. When there is sadness, there is always rest, and you have had no rest."
"No," said Evelina, her voice breaking, "I have had no rest--God knows that!"
"Then do you not see," asked the Piper very gently, "that you cannot help but make the music wrong? The Master gives you one deep note to play, and you hold it, always the same note, till the music is at an end.
"'T is something wrong, I'm thinking, that has made you hold it so. I'm not asking you to tell me, but I think that one day I shall see. Together we shall find what makes the music wrong, and together we shall make it right again."
"Together," repeated Evelina, unconsciously. Once the word had been sweet to her, but now it brought only bitterness.
"Aye, together. 'T is for that I stayed. Laddie and I were going on, that very day we saw you in the wood--the day I called you, and you came. I shall see, some day, what has made it wrong--yes. Spinner in the Shadow, I shall see. I'm grieving now for Laddie and my heart is sore, but when I have forgiven him, I shall be at rest."
"Forgiven who?" queried Evelina.
"Why, the man who hurt Laddie--the same, I'm thinking, who hurt you. But your hurt was worse than Laddie's, I take it, and so 't is harder to forgive."
Evelina's heart beat hard. Never before had she thought of forgiving Anthony Dexter. She put it aside quickly as altogether impossible. Moreover, he had not asked.
"What is it to forgive?" she questioned, curiously.
"The word is not made right," answered the Piper, "I'm thinking 't is wrong end to, as many things in this world are until we move and look at them from another way. It's giving for, that's all. When you have put self so wholly aside that you can be sorry for him because he has wronged you, why, then, you have forgiven."
"I shall never be able to do that," she returned. "Why, I should not even try."
"Ah," cried the Piper, "I knew that some day I should find what was wrong, but I did not think it would be now. 'T is because you have not forgiven that you have been sad for so long. When you have forgiven, you will be free."