Page:Ballinger Price--The Happy Venture.djvu/188

170 letter into his hand, and then gave way to the tears she had fought so long. The Maestro made no sign nor motion. His lips tightened, and his eyes blazed suddenly, but that was all.

He was all solicitude for Felicia. She must not think of going back to the empty farmhouse. He arranged a most comfortable little supper beside the fire, and even made her smile, with his eager talk, all ringing with hope and encouragement. And finally he put her in charge of his sympathetic little housekeeper, who tucked her up in a great, dark, soft bed.

Left alone in the library, the Maestro paced unsteadily up and down. "It is the sea that takes them!" he whispered. "It took my son; now it has taken one whom I loved as my son."

He sank down upon the piano-stool and gazed at the sheet of music on the music-rack. It was Kirk's last exercise, written out carefully in the embossed type that the Maestro had been at such pains to learn and teach. Something like a sob shook the old musician. He raised clenched, trembling fists above his head, and brought them down, a shattering blow, upon the keyboard. Then he sat still, his face buried in his arms on the shaken piano.