“It would only have troubled you,” she answered.  “It would not have helped me to know that you were troubled!”

“And he—­your father?” he asked.  “How did he receive it?”

Sylvia’s face grew pale, and she stared at the table-cloth as though she could not for the moment trust her voice.  Then she shuddered and said in a low and shaking voice—­so vivid was still the memory of that hour: 

“I thought that I should never see you again.”

She said no more.  From those few words, and from the manner in which she uttered them, Chayne had to build up the terrible scene which had taken place between Sylvia and her father in the little back room of the house in Hobart Place.  He looked round the lighted room, listened to the ripple of light voices, and watched the play of lively faces and bright eyes.  There was an incongruity between these surroundings and the words which he had heard which shocked him.

“My dear, I’ll make it up to you,” he said.  “Trust me, I will!  There shall be good hours, now.  I’ll watch you, till I know surely without a word from you what you are thinking and feeling and wanting.  Trust me, dearest!”

“With all my heart and the rest of my life,” she answered, a smile responding to his words, and she resumed her story: 

“I extracted from my father a promise that every week he should write to me and tell me how Mr. Hine was and where they both were.  And to that—­at last—­he consented.  They have been away together for two months, and every week I have heard.  So I think there is no danger.”

Chayne did not disagree.  But, on the other hand, he did not assent.

“I suppose Mr. Hine is very rich?” he said, doubtfully.

“No,” replied Sylvia.  “That’s another reason why—­I am not afraid.”  She chose the words rather carefully, unwilling to express a deliberate charge against her father.  “I used to think that he was—­in the beginning when Captain Barstow won so much from him.  But when the bets ceased and no more cards were played—­I used to puzzle over why they ceased last year.  But I think I have hit upon the explanation.  My father discovered then what I only found out a few weeks ago.  I wrote to Mr. Hine’s grandfather, telling him that his grandson was ill, and asking him whether he would not send for him.  I thought that would be the best plan.”

“Yes, well?”

“Well, the grandfather answered me very shortly that he did not know his grandson, that he did not wish to know him, and that they had nothing to do with one another in any way.  It was a churlish letter.  He seemed to think that I wanted to marry Mr. Hine,” and she laughed as she spoke, “and that I was trying to find out what we should have to live upon.  I suppose that it was natural he should think so.  And I am so glad that I wrote.  For he told me that although Mr. Hine must eventually have a fortune, it would not be until he himself died and that he was a very healthy man.  So you see, there could be no advantage to any one—­” and she did not finish the sentence.