He left her in the hall and ran upstairs to the nursery, where he was always a welcome visitor. Both children rushed to meet him with cries of delight.
“Cecil has sent me up with a message to you,” he said.
“To say we may come down,” shouted Lance. “Is it that, Herr Frithiof?”
“No,” cried Gwen, dancing round him, “it’s to say a holiday for to-morrow, I guess.”
“No, not that exactly,” he said; “but your father has come, and Cecil wants you to come down and see him.”
The children’s faces fell. It seemed almost as if they instinctively knew of the cloud that hung over their father. They had always known that he would some day come to them; but his name had been little mentioned. It was difficult to mention it without running the risk of the terrible questions which as children they were so likely to ask. All the gladness and spirit seemed to have left them. They were both shy, and the meeting with this unknown parent was a terror to them. They clung to Frithiof as he took them downstairs, and, catching sight of Cecil leaning back in one of the hall chairs, they made a rush for her, and poured out all their childish fears as she clung to them and kissed them with all the tenderness of a real mother.
“We don’t want to go and see father,” said Lance stoutly. “We had much rather not.”
“But you must think that he wants to see you very much,” said Cecil. “He remembers you quite well, though you have forgotten him; and now that he has come back to you, you must both make him very happy, and love him.”
“I don’t like him at all,” said Gwen perversely.
“It is silly and wrong to say that,” said Cecil. “You will love him when you see him.”