“And it sickened me,” said Mrs. Ogilvie. “You do everything in your power to make her eccentric. Now, I don’t wish to have an eccentric daughter. I wish to have a well brought up girl, who will be good while she is young, speak properly, not make herself in any way remarkable, learn her lessons, and make a successful debut in Society, all in due course.”
“With a view, doubtless, to a brilliant marriage,” added the husband, bitterly.
“I am going to knock all of this nonsense out of Sibyl,” was his wife’s answer, “and I mean to begin it when we get to Grayleigh Manor.”
Mrs. Ogilvie had hardly finished her words before an angry bang at the drawing-room door told her that her husband had left her.
Ogilvie went to his smoking-room at the other end of the hall. There he paced restlessly up and down. His temples were beating, and the pain at his heart was growing worse.
The postman’s ring was heard, and the footman, Watson, entered with a letter.
Ogilvie had expected this letter, and he knew what its purport would be. He only glanced at the writing, threw it on the table near, and resumed his walk up and down.
“It is the child,” he thought. “She perplexes me and she tempts me. Never was there a sweeter decoy duck to the verge of ruin. Poor little innocent white Angel! Her attitude toward her mother and me is sometimes almost maddening. Mildred wants to take that little innocent life and mould it after her own fashion. But, after all, am I any better than Mildred? If I yield to this”—he touched the letter with his hand—“I shall sweep in gold, and all money anxieties will be laid to rest. Little Sib will be rich by-and-by. This is a big thing, and if I do it I shall see my way to clearing off those debts which Mildred’s extravagance, and doubtless my own inclination, have caused me to accumulate. Whatever happens Sibyl will be all right; and yet—I don’t care for wealth, but Mildred does, and the child will be better for money. Money presents a shield between a sensitive heart like Sibyl’s and the world. Yes, I am tempted. Sibyl tempts me.”
He thrust the letter into a drawer, locked the drawer, put the key in his pocket, and ran up to Sibyl’s nursery. She was asleep, and there was no one else in the room. The blinds were down at the windows, and the nursery, pretty, dainty, sweet, and fresh, was in shadow.