“Yes; because she suffers her heart to direct her.”

“You are just as bad as the rest of your sex, I see.  Where you cannot withold credit from a woman, you give it to her heart and deny it to her head.”

“There!  I wont play any more,” said Miss McQuinch, suddenly, at the other end of the room.  “Have you finished your chess, Marian?”

“We are nearly done.  Ring for the lamps, please, Nelly.  Let us finish, Sholto.”

“Whose turn is it to move?  I beg your pardon for my inattention.”

“Mine—­no, yours.  Stop! it must be mine.  I really dont know.”

“Nor do I. I have forgotten my game.”

“Then let us put up the board.  We can finish some other night.”

It had become dark by this time; and the lamps were brought in whilst Douglas was replacing the chessmen in their box.

“Now,” said Marian, “let us have some music.  Marmaduke:  will you sing Uncle Ned for us?  We have not heard you sing for ages.”

“I believe it is more than three years since that abominable concert at Wandsworth; and I have not heard you sing since,” said Elinor.

“I forget all my songs—­havnt sung one of them for months.  However, here goes!  Have you a banjo in the house?”

“No,” said Marian.  “I will play an accompaniment for you.”

“All right.  See here:  you need only play these three chords.  When one sounds wrong, play another.  Youll learn it in a moment.”

Marmaduke’s voice was not so fresh, nor his fun so spontaneous, as at Wandsworth; but they were not critical enough to appreciate the difference:  they laughed like children at him.  Elinor was asked to play; but she would not:  she had renounced that folly, she said.  Then, at Douglas’s request, Marian sang, in memory of Wandsworth, “Rose, softly blooming.”  When she had finished, Elinor asked for some old melodies, knowing that Marian liked these best.  So she began gaily with The Oak and the Ash and Robin Adair.  After that, finding both herself and the others in a more pathetic vein, she sang them The Bailiff’s Daughter of Islington, and The Banks of Allan Water, at the end of which Marmaduke’s eyes were full of tears, and the rest sat quite still.  She paused for a minute, and then broke the silence with Auld Robin Gray, which affected even Douglas, who had no ear.  As she sang the last strain, the click of a latchkey was heard from without.  Instantly she rose; closed the pianoforte softly; and sat down at some distance from it.  Her action was reflected by a change in their behavior.  They remembered that they were not at home, and became more or less uneasily self-conscious.  Elinor was the least disturbed.  Conolly’s first glance on entering was at the piano:  his next went in search of his wife.

“Ah!” he said, surprised.  “I thought somebody was singing.”

“Oh dear no!” said Elinor drily.  “You must have been mistaken.”

“Perhaps so,” said he, smiling.  “But I have been listening carefully at the window for ten minutes; and I certainly dreamt that I heard Auld Robin Gray.”