“I don’t want you,” he replied, but as he spoke his grey eyes looked wistful. He turned for an instant and glanced at her. He noted the sunny, lovely hair, the agile, youthful, rounded figure. Once he had loved her passionately.
“Sibyl will be delighted to see you,” continued Mrs. Ogilvie. “She has been, on the whole, behaving very nicely. Of course, making both friends and foes, as is her usual impetuous way.”
“That reminds me,” said Ogilvie. “I shall see Sibyl before I leave; but that reminds me.”
“Of what?”
“I do not wish her to be told.”
“Told what? What do you mean? My dear Phil, you are eccentric.”
“I have no time to dispute the point, Mildred. I wish to give one hasty direction, which is to be obeyed. Sibyl is not to be told that I am going to Australia.”
“What, never?”
“She must be told when I am gone, but not till then. I will write to her, and thus break the news. She is not to be told to-day, not until she gets home, you understand? I won’t go at all if you tell her.”
“Oh, of course, I understand,” said Mrs. Ogilvie, in a frightened way; “but why should not the child hear what really is good tidings?”