Not so Cynthia, who took in the situation at a glance, and burst into a passion of sobs, which she checked directly, and with flushed face and flashing eyes she crossed to her brother.
“This is your doing,” she cried; “you will kill mamma before you’ve done; and Harry might have been here and heard all this. Cyril, I hate you; you’re as wicked as Frank;” and to her brother’s utter astonishment she struck him sharply in the face.
“Little fool!” he growled fiercely, as he caught her by the wrist, but only to fling her off with a contemptuous laugh. He made no motion to help, but stood with frowning brow and bitter vindictive eye watching his parents alternately; but though he went to and fro many times, and passed close to his son, the Rector never once looked at him, seeming quite to ignore his presence there.
Constant efforts had their due effect at last, for the unhappy mother uttered a low wailing cry, and then, as her senses returned and she realised her position, she began to sob bitterly, clinging to her husband as he knelt by her, bending his face down upon her hands as he held them tightly in his own.
From where Cyril stood he could see his father’s face, that it was deadly pale, and that his lips were moving rapidly as if in prayer, and thus all stayed for some little time, till the laboured sobbing of the invalid died off into an occasional catching sigh.
At last she unclosed her eyes, to fix them appealingly upon her son, her lips moving, though no audible words followed; but the look of appeal and the direction of her pathetically expressive eyes told her wishes as she glanced from Cyril to the carpet beside her couch—told plainly enough her wishes, and the young man read them aright—that he should come there and kneel down at his father’s side.
“Not I,” he muttered. “The old madman! How dare he raise his hand to me like that!”
He thrust his hands in his pockets and remained there with a look mingled of contempt and pity upon his face as he watched the prostrate figure of his father, while, as his mother’s appealing eyes were directed to him again and again, he merely replied to the dumbly-uttered prayer by an impatient shake of the head.
At last the Rector raised his eyes, and as he met his wife’s agonised look, he smiled gently, and then bent over her and kissed her brow.
“It is passed, my love,” he whispered. “God forgive me, I did not think I could have sunk so low.”