After all, he
was suffering too, and suddenly, for the first time, she pitied him.
"I am sorry, Gerald," she said, bending towards him and laying her hand
on his shoulder. "I----"
"Hush!" reaching out his hand he switched off the light, for they had
both heard slow footsteps coming softly down the passage.
The room was dark now but for the fire which had died down, and luckily
they stood in the shadow. The soft footsteps, heavy, though they would
have been noiseless at any other hour than this most quiet one,
approached slowly and deliberately. Instinctively the girl clung to the
man, and he put his arms round her for the first time since she was a
little child. Even in their mutual fright she felt his heart give a wild
throb.
Then the door opened gently and on the threshold appeared--Tommy, sound
asleep, hugging to his unconscious breast the volume of the Encyclopaedia
Britannica, in which he had been reading about the Amati.
Slowly the boy crossed the room and disappeared into the sitting-room.
"Go," whispered Brigit, desperately; "he mustn't be waked up--go this
way----"
But Carron had lost his head, and kissed her, breathlessly, hungrily,
and then, just as the little blue-clad figure again appeared in the one
doorway, he disappeared by the other.
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