When Laura opened the piano, Richard had taken a seat beside Cora, and Corliss stood leaning in the doorway.  The player lost herself in a wandering medley, echoes from “Boheme” and “Pagliacci”; then drifted into improvisation and played her heart into it magnificently—­a heart released to happiness.  The still air of the room filled with wonderful, golden sound:  a song like the song of a mother flying from earth to a child in the stars, a torrential tenderness, unpent and glorying in freedom.  The flooding, triumphant chords rose, crashed—­stopped with a shattering abruptness.  Laura’s hands fell to her sides, then were raised to her glowing face and concealed it for a moment.  She shivered; a quick, deep sigh heaved her breast; and she came back to herself like a prisoner leaving a window at the warden’s voice.

She turned.  Cora and Corliss had left the room.  Richard was sitting beside a vacant chair, staring helplessly at the open door.

If he had been vaguely conscious of Laura’s playing, which is possible, certainly he was unaware that it had ceased.

“The others have gone out to the porch,” she said composedly, and rose.  “Shan’t we join them?”

“What?” he returned, blankly.  “I beg your pardon——­”

“Let’s go out on the porch with the others.”

“No, I——­” He got to his feet confusedly.  “I was thinking——­ I believe I’d best be going home.”

“Not `best,’ I think,” she said.  “Not even better!”

“I don’t see,” he said, his perplexity only increased.

“Mr. Corliss would,” she retorted quickly.  “Come on:  we’ll go and sit with them.”  And she compelled his obedience by preceding him with such a confident assumption that he would follow that he did.

The fugitive pair were not upon the porch, however; they were discovered in the shade of a tree behind the house, seated upon a rug, and occupied in a conversation which would not have disturbed a sick-room.  The pursuers came upon them, boldly sat beside them; and Laura began to talk with unwonted fluency to Corliss, but within five minutes found herself alone with Richard Lindley upon the rug.  Cora had promised to show Mr. Corliss an “old print” in the library—­so Cora said.

Lindley gave the remaining lady a desolate and faintly reproachful look.  He was kind, but he was a man; and Laura saw that this last abandonment was being attributed in part to her.

She reddened, and, being not an angel, observed with crispness:  “Certainly.  You’re quite right:  it’s my fault!”

“What did you say?” he asked vacantly.

She looked at him rather fixedly; his own gaze had returned to the angle of the house beyond which the other couple had just disappeared.  “I said,” she answered, slowly, “I thought it wouldn’t rain this, afternoon.”

His wistful eyes absently swept the serene sky which had been cloudless for several days.  “No, I suppose not,” he murmured.