“Still I do not understand,” repeated Sibyl.
“Let me speak, my dear girl. I reached home, and I saw you, and then a temptation came to me. I wanted us both, you and I, to be happy together for two days. I knew that at the end of that time I must open your eyes.”
“Oh, we were happy!” said the child.
“Yes, for those two days we had peace, and we were, as you say, happy. I put away from me the thought of that which was before me, but I knew that it must come. It has come, Sibyl. The peace has been changed to storm; and now, little girl, I am in the midst of the tempest; the agony I feel in having to tell you this no words can explain.”
“I wish you would try and ’splain, all the same,” said Sibyl, in a weak, very weak voice.
“I will, I must; it is wrong of me to torture you.”
“It’s only ’cos of you yourself,” she murmured.
“Listen, my darling. You have often given thoughts to the Lombard Deeps Mine?”
“Oh, yes.” She raised herself a little on her pillow, and tried to speak more cheerfully. “I have thought of it, the mine full, full of gold, and all the people so happy!”