“Amen to that! But listen! Ah! how she weeps and wails! Oh, Lyon, how I pity her! Oh, how I wish I could do something for her! Oh, Lyon, are you sure it would be improper for me to go and see if I can relieve her in any way?” pleaded Sybil.
“Quite sure, my darling; I am quite sure that you must not interfere, at least at this stage. If this should be a case in which we can be of service, we shall be likely to know it when the waiter answers the bell that I rung some five minutes since,” said Lyon, soothingly.
But Sybil could not rest with the sound of that weeping and wailing in her ears. She left her chair and began to walk up and down the floor, and to pause occasionally at her door to listen.
Suddenly a door on the opposite side of the passage opened, and the voice of the landlord was heard, apparently speaking to the weeping woman.
“I beg you won’t distress yourself, ma’am; I am sure I wouldn’t do anything to distress you for the world. Keep up your spirits, ma’am. Something may turn up yet, you know,” he said as he closed the opposite door again; and then crossing the passage, he knocked at the door of the Berners’ apartments.
“Come in,” said Lyon Berners eagerly, while Sybil paused in her restless walk and gazed breathlessly at the door.
Both were so interested, they could not have told why, in that weeping woman.
The landlord entered and closed the door behind him, and advanced with a bow and an apology.
“I am afraid that you and your good lady have been disturbed by the noise in the other room; but really I could not help it. I have done all I could to comfort the poor creature; but really you know, ‘Rachel weeping for her children’ was nothing to this woman. She’s been going on in this way for the last three days, sir. I did hope she would be quiet this evening. I told her that I had guests in these rooms. But, Lord, sir! I might just as well try to reason with a thunderstorm as with her. I wish I had quieter rooms to put you in, sir.”
“Pray do not think of us. It is not the disturbance we mind on our own account; it is to hear a fellow creature in so much distress. A guest of the house?” inquired Mr. Berners.