Part 16 (1/2)

Parminter tore the leaf out, but this time he did not crumple it. He blotted it carefully, folded it, and laid it on the mantle-shelf.

”Let us get him up,” he said, and with Barstow's help they lifted Hine out of his chair. Sylvia caught a glimpse of his face. His mouth was loose, his eyes half shut, and the lids red; he seemed to be in a stupor.

His head rolled upon his shoulders. He swayed as his companions held him up; his knees gave under him. He began incoherently to talk.

”Hus.h.!.+” said Parminter. ”You'll wake the house. You don't want that pretty girl to see you in this state, do you, Wallie? After the impression you made on her, too! Get his hat and coat out of the pa.s.sage, Barstow.”

He propped Hine against the table, and holding him upright turned to the door. He saw ”the pretty girl” leaning over the banister and gazing with horror-stricken eyes into the room. Sylvia drew back on the instant.

With a gesture of his hand, Archie Parminter stopped Barstow on his way to the door.

Sylvia leaned back against the wall of the staircase, holding her breath, and tightly pressing a hand upon her heart. Had they seen her?

Would they come out into the pa.s.sage? What would happen? Would they kill her? The questions raced through her mind. She could not have moved, she thought, had Death stood over her. But nothing happened. She could not now see into the room, and she heard no whisper, no footsteps creeping stealthily along the pa.s.sage toward her, no sound at all. Presently she recovered her breath, and crept up-stairs. Once in her room, with great care she locked the door, and sank upon her bed, shaking and trembling.

There she lay until the noise of the hall door closing very gently roused her. She crept along the wall till she was by the side of the window. Then she raised herself against the wall and peered out. She saw Barstow and Parminter supporting Hine along the street, each with an arm through his. A hansom-cab drove up, they lifted Hine into it, got in themselves, and drove off. As the cab turned, Archie Parminter glanced up to the windows of the house. But Sylvia was behind the curtains at the side. He could not have seen her. Sylvia leaned her head against the panels of the door and concentrated all her powers so that not a movement in the house might escape her 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 brus.h.i.+ng 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.

CHAPTER XI

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.