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

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Sydney’s merry voice was hushed as she came into the drawing-room, for mother did not like boisterous ways, and father might be tired. But, though her feet moved soberly, her eyes were dancing as she held out the precious letter to the doctor, standing by the window.

He turned, and Sydney suddenly forgot the guinea.

What made him look so old and strange? And surely mother’s head was bent down low above her work to hide her tears! Sydney stopped short, with an exclamation of dismay.

Father grasped a letter in a hand that shook. Vaguely she saw that the crumpled envelope had “Lincoln’s Inn” upon the back. It was the letter which had come with hers at four o’clock that afternoon!

The hall clock heralded the striking of six by a variety of strange wheezing sounds: when it had slowly tinged away the six strokes, father spoke.

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Half an hour had gone by—the very longest half hour in Sydney’s happy life; and there was silence in the drawing-room.

Father had been speaking, but he was silent now, standing with his face turned towards the shuttered windows. On the floor knelt Sydney, her head on mother’s knee. She was not crying—this calamity seemed too great for tears—tears such as had been shed over the untimely fate of Prissie’s bullfinch, or the sewing up by father of that dreadful cut in Ronald’s cheek. Her shoulders shook with suppressed sobs, but no tears came.