“If after all the trouble she has given you, Sylvia will be welcome, I can answer for her delight,” returned Mr. Carfax promptly.
Anne put out her hand with an impulsive gesture.
“You are quite a dear!” she observed, and her sudden smile still further illuminated the dusky corners of the Vicar’s strictly limited imagination.
The entrance of Burks with the tea-things gave him a moment to recover from the shock of a series of mental and emotional upheavals to which he was unaccustomed.
“You will stay, of course?” begged Anne. “My note to your wife was quite explicit,” she added. “She won’t be anxious now.”
“Thank you,” said Mr. Carfax. “I want to hear particulars about Sylvia, and I feel I should be all the better for a cup of tea.”
Five minutes later, Mrs. Carfax entered a room bright with fire and candle-light, in which her husband sat comfortably ensconced in an arm-chair opposite to Miss Page, who was passing him hot cakes of a delicious crispness.
Anne went quickly across the room.
“It’s quite right. Don’t worry,” she hastened to say, as she kissed her visitor. “I’m just telling your husband all about it.”
“Sylvia must come home!” declared her mother, after Anne’s recital. Her hand was still trembling as she put down her tea-cup. “She’s not fit to be left alone in a great wicked city. I always said to George it was madness to let her go away from us!”