He stood uncertain what to do while Adam Craig slipped down in his
chair. Drunk, perverse and cruel! With the rain beating at the
windows Kenny thought of Joan, compassion in his heart, and rang for
Hughie.

"I--I'm afraid he's drunk," he whispered with a sense of guilt when
Hughie came. "Perhaps I shouldn't have given him the bottle."

Hughie glanced at his watch.

"It's nine o'clock," he said. "He's late."

"You mean?"

"Every night," said Hughie. "The doctor gave up fightin' long ago."

Kenny went to his room filled with pity and disgust.

Gusts of wind and rain battered at the orchard blossoms the next day
and the next. Kenny found a tuning outfit in a closet and spent his
days with Joan tuning the Craig piano. He was grateful in the gloom of
dark wood and dust for the fantastic thing of lavender she wore. It
was like a bit of iris in a bog, he told her, and was sorry when he saw
her glance with troubled eyes at the dust and cobwebs.

The river ran high and brown. The horn beneath the willow was silent.
Each night Adam Craig sent for his guest. The rain, he said, made him
lonesome. Each night in a hopeless conflict of pity and dislike Kenny
went, rain and wind and Adam Craig getting horribly upon his nerves.