“Marion, my dear,” he said, “you alarm me. What can be the matter, my poor child? Surely, surely,” he went on hurriedly, as for the first time a dreadful possibility occurred to him, “there can be nothing wrong with Harry?”
She sat up, mechanically pushing back from her temples the hair, usually so neat and smooth, which had fallen loose as she lay. Her father caught her upraised hand, and held it gently in his. But she seemed hardly conscious of the unusual kindness of his manner.
“No, not Harry,” she replied, “but, oh, Papa, look here,” and as she spoke, with her other hand she pointed to those dreadful four lines in the newspaper lying on the pillow beside her, “it is Cissy, my dear Cissy—the only sister I ever had—my own dear, kind Cissy.” And the sobs burst out again as violently as at first. Mr. Vere, hardly understanding what she said, stared at the place she pointed out, but for a minute or two could not decipher the words.
When their meaning at last broke upon him, he staggered and almost fell.
“This is very dreadful,” he said, “very sad and dreadful. So young and bright and happy! My poor little Cissy! It is like her mother over again. Marion, my dearest child, you can hardly feel this more than I do. You don’t know all it brings back to me.”
And Marion, now glancing at her father, saw his face pale with deep emotion, while one or two large tears gathered in his eyes.
It was the best thing to bring her back to herself.
“My poor father,” she thought, “how I have misjudged you!” And with a sudden loving impulse, she threw her arms round his neck, and clung to him as she had hardly, even in her confiding infancy, ever clung to him before. Nor was she repulsed.
In a little while her father spoke to her; kindly and gently, in a way she would hardly have believed it possible for him to speak; he, in general, so cold and satirical, so unbending and severe.
He left her in a short time, promising to write at once to Cheltenham for details of this sad news; and volunteering also to send for Harry for a day or two, that she might feel less solitary in her grief.