“Yes.”
“You remember them well?”
“I was in the chain-gang at Macquarie Harbour with them for three years.” Sylvia, hearing this hideous reason for acquaintance, gave a low cry, and fell into her father's arms.
“Oh, papa, take me away! I feel as if I was going to remember something terrible!”
Amid the deep silence that prevailed, the cry of the poor girl was distinctly audible in the Court, and all heads turned to the door. In the general wonder no one noticed the change that passed over Rufus Dawes. His face flushed scarlet, great drops of sweat stood on his forehead, and his black eyes glared in the direction from whence the sound came, as though they would pierce the envious wood that separated him from the woman whose voice he had heard. Maurice Frere sprang up and pushed his way through the crowd under the bench.
“What's this?” he said to Vickers, almost brutally. “What did you bring her here for? She is not wanted. I told you that.”
“I considered it my duty, sir,” says Vickers, with stately rebuke.
“What has frightened her? What has she heard? What has she seen?” asked Frere, with a strangely white face. “Sylvia, Sylvia!”
She opened her eyes at the sound of his voice. “Take me home, papa; I'm ill. Oh, what thoughts!”
“What does she mean?” cried Frere, looking in alarm from one to the other.