His grave face sent a sudden chill into her heart.
“Father!—what is it?—has anything happened to——”
“Sir John Alard is dead——”
“Well——”
She knew that was not what he had to tell her.
“And Peter doesn’t inherit Conster.”
She stared at him—she could not understand. Was Peter illegitimate? Her heart sickened at the monstrous irony of such a thought.... But it was impossible. She was conceiving the preposterous in self-defence—in frantic hope that Peter was not ... dead.
“Is he dead?” she asked her father.
He bowed his head silently.
She could not speak. She was kneeling on the floor in front of the unlighted fire. In one hand she held some sticks, and for a time she could not move, but knelt there, holding out the unkindled sticks towards the back hearth.