"It was locked," she says, defending herself from the incredulous expression, "the morning after I came here,--and--I thought--the piano is Laura's," she concludes. "Did you try it more than once?" he asks. "Yes." She blushes pitifully, but her honesty will not allow her to screen herself to him. "You must never let him think a wrong thing about you," says Denise, in her code of instructions. It is not at all as she imagines. He is amazed that any member of his family would do so small a thing as to exclude her from the use of the piano. "Well," he says, "you shall have one of your own as soon as Laura can take hers away." "Oh!" Her sweet face is suddenly illumined. How delightful it will be through the long days when papa is away! She can begin to give Cecil lessons. "I suppose you are all for Beethoven," the professor is saying. "Young people find such melody in 'Songs without Words.' But I want you to listen to this nocturne of Chopin's, though it is not a morning song." Violet listens entranced. Floyd watches her face, where the soft lights come and go. If she could always look like that! But Freilgrath cannot spend the whole morning at the piano. They are to drive around, to see the place and the factory, to arrange some plans for work. "Cannot the pretty mother and child go?" he asks. "Why, yes," Floyd answers, pleased with the notion. They stop at the cottage, which the German thinks a charming nook, then drive on to the factory. Violet and Cecil remain within while the two men make a tour of inspection. Floyd's spirits have risen many degrees in the past week. The machinery has worked to a charm, and demonstrated much that St. Vincent claimed for it. There seems no reasonable doubt of its success. Rising will be retained, and is empowered to hire any of the old hands who will come back and obey orders. Several have given in their allegiance, and some others are halting through a feeling of indignation at being falsely accused. But the fact is patent now that all along there has been a traitor or traitors in the camp. Violet sits there in the carriage talking to Cecil, half wrapped in a fluffy white shawl. She is just in range of a window, and the man watching her feels that Floyd Grandon has more than his share of this world's favors. What has life done for _him_? asks Jasper Wilmarth with bitter scorn. Given him a crooked, unhandsome body, a lowering face, with its heavy brows and square, rugged features. No woman has ever cared for him, no woman would ever worship him, while dozens no doubt would allow Grandon to ride rough-shod over them if he only smiled afterward. He has come to hate the man so that if he could ordain any evil upon him he would gladly.