"Leave the room, Derval; mamma does not want you to-day."
"Oh, papa, you are not angry with me?"
"Yes—no—but go; you are a bad boy to insist on coming to table."
And so Derval never sat at that table again till the day came when he was to leave the house for ever.
As he was peremptorily forbidden to go near the sea-shore, he frequently went to the churchyard of Finglecombe and spent hours there, weaving chaplets of daisies and wild flowers.
"What brings you here so often, my poor child?" asked Mr. Asperges Laud (patting him on the head) the curate, in his long-tailed coat, gaiters, and Roman collarino.
"To be near mamma's grave," said Derval, gulping down a sob. "Besides, it is a quiet place for a good cry," he added, as the kind curate took him into his little thatched parsonage.
In the dark nights of winter he could recal how tenderly mamma put him to bed, and watched beside him till he slept. It was old Patty Fripp who did so now, who tucked him cosily into his little crib and kissed him some twenty times ere she bade him "good-night," but, by order of Mrs. Hampton, was not permitted to linger beside him.
"The child tells you, ma'm, that he can't sleep in the dark alone, from fear," urged Patty on one occasion.
"Fear of what?" she asked curtly.