She looked out, through the opening at the mouth of the court into the glare of the Strand.

The bright prospect which her vivid fancies had pictured there a minute since, transforming the dusky street into fields of corn and purple heather, the omnibuses into wagons drawn by teams of great horses musical with bells, had all grown dark.

A real horror was gripping her.

But she turned her eyes quietly back upon her father's face and waited.
"His presence will spoil our holiday a little," Garratt Skinner continued with an easy assurance.

"You saw, no doubt, what Wallie Hine is, last night--a weak, foolish youth, barely half-educated, awkward, with graces of neither mind nor body, and in the hands of two scoundrels." Sylvia started, and she leaned forward with a look of bewilderment plain to see in her dark eyes.
"Yes, that's the truth, Sylvia.