ears. She listened for the sound of some one
else moving in the room below, some one who had been
left behind. She listened for a creak of the
stairs, the brushing of a coat against the stair rail,
the sound of some one going stealthily to his room.
She stood at the door, with her face strangely set
for a long while. Her mind was quite made up.
If she heard her father moving from that room, she
would just wait until he was asleep, and then she would
go—anywhere. She could not go back
to her mother, that she knew. She had no one
to go to; nevertheless, she would go.
But no sound reached her. Her father was not
in the room below. He must have gone to bed and
left the others to themselves. The pigeon had
been plucked that night, not a doubt of it, but her
father had had no hand in the plucking. She laid
herself down upon her bed, exhausted, and again sleep
came to her. And in a moment the sound of running
water was in her ears.
SYLVIA’S FATHER MAKES A MISTAKE
Sylvia did not wake again until the maid brought in
her tea and told her that it was eight o’clock.
When she went down-stairs, her father was already
in the dining-room. She scanned him closely, but
his face bore no sign whatever of a late and tempestuous
night; and a great relief enheartened her. He
met her with an open smile.
“Did you sleep well, Sylvia?”
“Not very well, father,” she answered,
as she watched his face. “I woke up in
the early morning.”
But nothing could have been more easy or natural than
his comment on her words.
“Yet you look like a good sleeper. A strange
house, I suppose, Sylvia.”
“Voices in the strange house,” she answered.
“Voices?”
Garratt Skinner’s face darkened.
“Did those fellows stay so late?” he asked
with annoyance. “What time was it when
they woke you up, Sylvia?”
“A little before five.”
Garratt Skinner’s annoyance increased.
“That’s too bad,” he cried.
“I left them and went to bed. But they
promised me faithfully only to stay another half-hour.
I am very sorry, Sylvia.” And as she poured
out the tea, he continued: “I will speak
pretty sharply to Barstow. It’s altogether
too bad.”
Garratt Skinner breakfasted with an eye on the clock,
and as soon as the hands pointed to five minutes to
nine, he rose from the table.
“I must be off—business, my dear.”
He came round the table to her and gently laid a hand
upon her shoulder. “It makes a great difference,
Sylvia, to have a daughter, fresh and young and pretty,
sitting opposite to me at the breakfast table—a
very great difference. I shall cut work early
to-day on account of it; I’ll come home and fetch
you, and we’ll go out and lunch somewhere together.”
He spoke with every sign of genuine feeling; and Sylvia,
looking up into his face, was moved by what he said.
He smiled down at her, with her own winning smile;
he looked her in the face with her own frankness, her
own good humor.
