Kester may say next as there's a chance as your father is not dead, because we none on us saw him----' 'Hung,' he was going to have said, but a touch of humanity came back into his stony heart.

Sylvia sent up a little sharp cry at his words.

He longed at the sound to take her in his arms and hush her up, as a mother hushes her weeping child.

But the very longing, having to be repressed, only made him more beside himself with guilt, anxiety, and rage.

They were quite still now.