"Well," said Sir William, "I believe you are right, Miss Lindsay; I will go upstairs now; it will be better to get it over."
I sat waiting his return in the library, but more than an hour passed before he reappeared. Then he said, "I have told her, Miss Lindsay, and she bore it better than I expected, poor child. Will you go upstairs and try to comfort her a little?"
I went upstairs, and found Evelyn still in bed; her face was buried in the pillow, and she was crying bitterly. I sat down beside her without speaking for some time, just holding her hand in mine, to show her how much I was feeling for her. What could I say to comfort her? I hardly knew what to say, and perhaps, after all, silent sympathy was the best.
At length, after a long time, she grew calmer, and then she said, without uncovering her face:
"Oh, May, isn't it dreadful?"
"Yes, darling," I said, "I am very, very sorry; I had no idea it was anything so dreadful as that!"
"No," she said, "and I am sure I had not; the very worst that I could think of was that Donald had got very badly into debt, and had wasted all his money. I never dreamt that he—"
But here she burst into tears, and could not go on with what she was saying.
"Evelyn, dear," I said, "for your father's sake, try not to make yourself ill; he is so fond of you, and so distressed at the thought of what this trouble must be to you."
"Yes," she said through her tears, "papa has been so kind, so very, very kind. He told me that it was because he loved me so much that he could not bear to think of me caring for Donald. Papa says he always thought that Donald was good-for-nothing; but he seemed so nice, May, so very nice he was to me. I knew he was foolish and careless, but I never thought he could do a wicked thing like that!"