“Why, how nice and early you are, Roy!” exclaimed Cecil. “Oh! mother has been telling us no end of stories, you ought to have been here to listen to them. And, Roy, we are most likely going to have those little children over the way to live with us till their father is out of prison again.”
Roy seemed grave and preoccupied, but Cecil was too happy to notice that, and chattered on contentedly. He scarcely heard her, yet a sense of strong contrast made the home-likeness of the scene specially emphasized to him. He looked at his father leaning back in the great arm-chair, with reading-lamp and papers close by him, but with his eyes fixed on Cecil as she sat on the rug at his feet, the firelight brightening her fair hair; he looked at his mother on the opposite side of the hearth, in the familiar dress which she almost always wore—black silk with soft white lace about the neck and bodice, and a pretty white lace cap. She was busy with her netting, but every now and then glanced up at him.
“You are tired to-night, Roy,” she said, when Cecil’s story had come to an end.
“Just a little,” he owned. “Such a curious thing happened to me. It was a good thing you caught sight of me at Hyde Park Corner and stopped to ask about the trial, Cecil, for otherwise it would never have come about. Who do you think I met just as you drove on?”
“I can’t guess,” said Cecil, rising from her place on the hearth-rug as the gong sounded for supper.
“One of our Norwegian friends,” said Roy. “Frithiof Falck.”
“What! is he actually in England?” said Cecil, taking up the reading-lamp to carry it into the next room.
“Yes, poor fellow,” said Roy.
Something in his tone made Cecil’s heart beat quickly; she could not have accounted for the strength of the feeling which suddenly overwhelmed her; she hardly knew what it was she feared so much, or why such a sudden panic had seized upon her; she trembled from head to foot, and was glad as they crossed the hall to hand the lamp to Roy, glancing up at him as she did so, apprehensively.
“Why do you say poor fellow?” she asked. “Oh, Roy, what is the matter? what—what has happened to him?”