CHAPTER V.
Through the flowers on the hotel dining-table Mrs.Pendleton was able to watch her niece unnoticed, because the flowers occupied such an unreasonably large space on the little round table set for three.

Besides, Sisily had been engrossed in her own thoughts throughout the meal.

Mrs.
Pendleton was disturbed by her quietness.

There was something unnatural about it--something not girlish.

She had not spoken once during the drive from Flint House to Penzance, and she sat through dinner with a still white face, silent, and hardly eating anything.
Mrs.Pendleton supposed Sisily was fretting over her mother, but she did not understand a girl whose grief took the form of silence and stillness.
She would have preferred a niece who would have sobbed out her grief on her shoulder, been reasonably comforted, and eaten a good dinner afterwards.