"Come here, dad," she said, when at last he arrived at the breakfast-table. "I've been longing for something to happen, and I believe this is really a happening at last."
"It is my uncle's writing," said Mr. Graydon, as he took the letter and opened it. As he read it his face grew graver and graver.
"Poor old Uncle Charles!" he said, when he had finished. "His boy is dead."
Lord Downshire's letter was very characteristic:—
"My dear Archie,—I will not say you have scored again, but at least I have failed with the last card I held against you. My boy is dead. I don't ask for your sympathy or your pity. You, with your healthy girls, cannot appreciate what I suffer. I am racked in the spirit and the body, and I shall be very glad to leave a world that has lost savour for me. I heard indirectly that you were ill after you had been here; but, you see, you have recovered, and it is my boy that is dead. You are my heir now, and I am too sick of it all to make another attempt to frustrate you. And there is no use continuing in enmity against you, so I shall make you an allowance proportionate to the condition of my heir. I shall not ask to see you, but Messrs. Lees and Saunders, of Lincoln's Inn—you will remember Saunders; Lees died last year—have my instructions."
Mr. Graydon put the letter into his pocket when he had read it.
"Something has happened, Sylvia," he said sorrowfully. "I am Lord Downshire's heir once more; and yet I would a thousand times rather be as I was, and the old man's little son living."
But the happenings of the day were not over.
Sylvia, going her pilgrimage to Miss Spencer's new grave, was aware of a tall young figure, which had something familiar about it, swinging along towards her. Presently she recognised Anthony Trevithick.
"Miss Sylvia," he said, "I am so glad I met with you. I want to see Pamela."