It wasn't true. She _would_ mind them. If he were really there he would
know it wasn't true.

She turned and looked again at the piano. She went to it. She opened the
lid and sat down before it. Her fingers crept along the keyboard; they
flickered over the notes of the Sonata _Appassionata_, a ghostly, furtive
playing, without pressure, without sound.

And she was ashamed as if the piano were tempting her to some cruel,
abominable sin.




XXII


I.

The consultation had lasted more than an hour.

From the cobbled square outside you could see them through the window,
Mamma, Uncle Edward, Uncle Victor and Farmer Alderson, sitting round the
dining-room table and talking, talking, talking about Roddy.

It was awful to think that things--things that concerned you--could go on
and be settled over your head without your knowing anything about it. She
only knew that Papa had made Uncle Victor and Uncle Edward the trustees
and guardians of his children who should be under age at his death (she
and Roddy were under age), and that Mamma had put the idea of farming in