"You are crying," he said, gently for him.
"Yes," Marion admitted, softly. "Oh, if I could only do anything to help. If you only knew how my heart goes out to these poor people!"
"And yet it may be your turn next, Marion. But I hope not—I hope not. We could not lose the only sunshine in the house!"
Marion choked down a sob. When she turned to Ralph again he was far off feeling his way along the room—feeling, feeling always for the clue to the secret.
CHAPTER XII GEOFFREY IS PUT TO THE TEST
The house was quiet at last. When these mysterious things had first happened, fear and alarm had driven sleep from every eye, and many was the long night the whole family had spent, huddled round the fire till gray morn chased their fears away.
But as the inhabitants of a beleaguered city learn to sleep through a heavy bombardment, so had the Ravenspurs come to meet these horrors with grim tenacity. They were all upstairs now, behind locked doors, with a hope that they might meet again on the morrow. Only Geoffrey was up waiting for his uncle Ralph.
He came at length so noiselessly that Geoffrey was startled, and motioned to him that he should follow him without a word.