figure attracting much pitying interest in her deep mourning, went up the aisle with a burning face, and feeling as though she must either choke or burst into sobs.
Unable to do either, she sat and stood and knelt through the service, not heeding a word of it, looking fixedly at the floor and pinching the back of her own hand as hard as she could, to keep back her tears, and feeling certain that the eyes of the clergyman and of all the congregation were fixed upon her Prayer-Book-less condition.
On leaving the church, Mrs. Lloyd-Evans began to speak to her husband in a low voice, and they moved on ahead with James; while Zella, though certain that Aunt Marianne could be telling him nothing but the dreadful explanation of why she had arrived so late, was thankful to dawdle behind with Muriel, whose boots were now doing their best to spoil Sunday for their wearer.
It was not until after tea that Mrs. Lloyd-Evans called Zella into the drawing-room. The child had spent the afternoon in a sick agony of shame and apprehension that would hardly have been justified if she had been about to be tried for her life.
Aunt Marianne, grave but gentle, made her sit down upon a sofa under the shadow of the In Memorial table. It was the corner consecrated to the Sunday talks to which James had taken exception.
"My poor child!" said Aunt Marianne, "have you been thinking what a dreadful thing it is not to be quite open and truthful—and especially about such a thing as a Prayer-Book?"
She took her niece's hand in hers as she spoke, and the kindness made the thoroughly overwrought Zella burst into tears.
"There, don't cry, dear. Aunt Marianne quite sees that you are sorry, but such a tendency must be fought against very seriously. It's very dreadful to be artful, but we can all cure ourselves of our faults if we like, and Aunt Marianne will help you."
"I didn't mean," sobbed Zella resentfully.
"Hush, dear! don't say that, because it's not quite true. You see, by running in to fetch the Prayer-Book when you knew it wasn't there, you were deceiving Aunt Marianne, or trying to. So it was acting a lie, if it wasn't actually telling one."
Zella, utterly bewildered and conscious of guilt somewhere, was also conscious of misunderstanding, but it seemed useless to try and explain.
Aunt Marianne was still speaking, with soft, relentless fluency:
"There is a little saying about a half-truth being ever the worst of lies. So you see that it doesn't make it any better to make excuses. You must think about it a great deal, dear, and say a little prayer every night that you may have the courage to be truthful. It would have made your dear, dear mother very sad to think that her little daughter could say what was not true— and only such a short time after losing her."
The appositeness of this conclusion struck Zella with a renewed sense of her guilt—heartless, deceitful, and disloyal to the memory of her mother, who, as Aunt Marianne had often said, was always watching over her little daughter from the skies.
"Now don't cry any more, dear, but think it over," her aunt concluded. "Go upstairs now, and send James and Muriel to me. I thought you'd rather have your little talk with Aunt Marianne quite alone, but I must not rob them of their Sunday half-hour. Jimmy's last Sunday," she added with a sigh.
Zella crept upstairs and gave the message to Muriel with averted, tear-stained face. James was nowhere to be seen.
Then she rushed to her own room and threw herself on the bed in a renewed agony of tears. At first she said to herself between her sobs: "I'm not artful—I'm not deceitful; it's unjust." But afterwards she thought: "It's no use—I did tell lies ! though not the one Aunt Marianne thought. I am a liar—James would despise me if he knew. And the worst of it was that it was all no use."
VI
IF a certain air of sadness was worn by Mrs. Lloyd-Evans and Muriel in alluding to "Jimmy's last Sunday," it may readily be conjectured that the last evening of the holidays did not pass unmourned.
A suggestion of James's to the effect that he, Zella, and Muriel, should be allowed to go to the cinematograph on the Tuesday evening before his return to Harrow was quashed by his mother's reproachful "On your last evening at home, my boy !" and Muriel whispered something to her brother which Zella easily guessed to be a reminder of her own deep mourning.
She tried to look unconscious and to keep down a certain feeling of gratified melancholy, but when Tuesday evening actually came, Zella heartily wished that James's plan had been a feasible one.
She wondered why all suggestion of occupation should have been tacitly negatived, since it did not appear that the evening held anything definite in view. Even the perfunctory game of Loto, which was played almost every night when the children came down to the drawing-room after dinner, was not suggested..
Mr. Lloyd-Evans sat over-the evening .paper with his profoundest ail-'of dejection;'James lounged unwillingly on the sofa to which his mother had silently beckoned him beside her; Muriel, seated on the hearthrug, looked gloomily into the fire; and Zella sat in an arm-chair wishing that Aunt Marianne were not certain to think reading a book in the drawing-room unsociable and ill-mannered.
Presently Mr. Lloyd-Evans put down his paper, looked uncomfortably round at his speechless family, and began to ask James perfunctory questions as to his journey.
The sympathetic Zella, intensely aware of the feeling that had caused Uncle Henry to break the silence, was emboldened to say:
"Shan't we do something? Why don't you play your new piece, Muriel?"
James and his father welcomed the suggestion so heartily that Mrs. Lloyd-Evans's weighty silence was overborne.
"I'll do your accompaniment," said James with unwonted amiability. His mother's low-toned "That's right, dear: my good boy, to make a little effort !" sent him scowling to the piano, which he opened with a bang that made everybody jump, and elicited from his mother a sigh and a murmur of Jimmy ! Jimmy!"
Zella knew that her cousin was considered musical, but had never heard him play, nor did his accompaniment to Muriel's " Chaconne " seem to her in any way remarkable.
She played the piano herself, and would have liked to perform in the drawing-room; but Aunt Marianne had said that she quite understood Zella would not want to do any music just at present, so the suggestion had never been made.
When the "Chaconne" had been duly applauded, Mrs. Lloyd-Evans said: "Muriel dear, can you play that pretty Viennoise of Kreisler that mother is so fond of?"
"I've learnt it," Muriel replied doubtfully, "but Monsieur Piré.says.it is. too.difficult.for me."
"So it is," said James flatly.
"Nonsense, darling!' You can play it very nicely. I should hear in a moment if there were any wrong notes; I have a very good ear,". said Mrs. Lloyd-Evans firmly.
James got up from the piano.
"Sit down again, Jimmy, and play the Kreisler with Muriel."
"I can't play it."
"Oh, James, you can !" cried Muriel in perfect good faith.
