Sara's emotion was subsiding: she sat very still now, her head a little bent, as if ashamed of having betrayed it; the tears dried upon her cheeks, but an uncontrollable sob broke from her now and then. Dr. Davenal had taken her hand under the table, for she sat next to him, and was holding it in his.
"You foolish child!" he fondly whispered.
"Papa, if--if anything were to happen to you--if you were to go and leave me here alone, I should die," was the answer, uttered passionately.
"Hush, hush! My darling, you and I are alike in the hands of a loving God."
She laid her fingers again upon her bosom. How violently it was beating, how difficult it was to still its throbs of pain, she alone knew.
"I met that gentleman this afternoon, the connection of Lady Oswald's whom I saw for the first time the day of the funeral," spoke up the clergyman, breaking the silence which had fallen upon the room. "Mr. Oswald Cray."
"I met him, too," said the doctor. "It was at your house, Mark. I asked him to come here today, but he declined."
"He is gone back to town, I think," said Mark.
"He said he was going."
"Did you ask him to dine here, Uncle Richard?" cried Leo.