Читать книгу Sydney Lisle, the Heiress of St. Quentin онлайн

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The time was rather after five o’clock on a dark afternoon a week later.

The train lamps had been lit two hours ago, and cast a vivid, unshaded light upon a comfortable first-class railway carriage, with its well-stuffed seats, well-covered floors, and tasselled blinds shutting out the winter darkness.

Even particular Mr. Fenton thought the light good enough to read by, and was leaning back luxuriously in his corner of the carriage, immersed in the Westminster Gazette.

But Sydney, who sat opposite him, could not read. A pile of magazines considered by Mr. Fenton to suit her age and sex lay around her, and she was idly turning up the pages of one on her knee. But her eyes were fixed dreamily upon the wall before her, and her thoughts were leagues away from the swiftly-moving train, which was carrying her ever nearer and nearer to the new, strange life.

It did not seem possible that she could be the same Sydney who, only a week ago, had been so wildly happy over the letter from the Editor of Our Girls. Why, though six copies of the paper with her story in it had arrived for her, “With the compliments of the Editor,” that morning, she had not even looked at them. No one had cared: all that happiness and excitement had been years and years ago!