CHAPTER XXXIV
[Some Letters and a Telegram]
Mrs. Sydney Beaton sat reading a letter. By her, in a bassinette, was a baby; every now and then, half unconsciously, she would move the bassinette to and fro, as if to make sure that the baby should go on sleeping. At a little distance two children were playing, a boy and a girl; sometimes the boy called the girl Violet, and she called him Sydney. It was a glorious day; the clear champagne-like air of New South Wales in spring time.
Mrs. Beaton was at home, and a lovely home it seemed to be; a pretty picture of happiness and health its mistress would have made. Though, plainly, she was troubled by the letter. Although it had only arrived that morning, she knew its contents almost by heart, yet she read it again; when she had read it she let it lie upon her knee, while, with something wistful in her glance, she seemed to be looking at some picture which the eye of her imagination conjured up before her. Then, with the faintest little sigh, she took up other letters that were lying on her lap, and glanced through them. Then she reverted to that picture of her imagination; and she sighed again, and this time it was obviously a sigh.
As if conscience-stricken, as if guilty of at least some impropriety, she rose abruptly from her seat, and, with a startled air, looked round her, the letters bundled together in her hand. All at once firm footsteps came hurrying towards her. Turning, a tall, upright, sinewy, wiry man, without an ounce of superfluous flesh about him, his face and neck and hands bronzed by the sun, greeted her with hands outstretched.
"Sydney!" she cried, "you're earlier than I expected. I was coming over to meet you."
"Yes, I came by the earlier train. Hullo, you people!"
The boy and the girl had come rushing to him with boisterous glee. He picked them up, one on either arm; they were full of questions which had to be answered, and news which required his instant attention. It was some minutes before husband and wife were alone together.
"What made you come by the earlier train without letting me know? I can see there was something."
Her quick eyes were skilled in reading the signs of the weather on her husband's face; she could see that on it there was something like a cloud, though no larger than a man's hand.