‘And say he’s sent to York, and say he’s tried theere, what’s t’ worst they can do again’ him?’ asked she, keeping down her agitation to look at Philip the more sharply.  Her eyes never slackened their penetrating gaze at his countenance, until he replied, with the utmost unwillingness, and most apparent confusion,—­

‘They may send him to Botany Bay.’

He knew that he held back a worse contingency, and he was mortally afraid that she would perceive this reserve.  But what he did say was so much beyond her utmost apprehension, which had only reached to various terms of imprisonment, that she did not imagine the dark shadow lurking behind.  What he had said was too much for her.  Her eyes dilated, her lips blanched, her pale cheeks grew yet paler.  After a minute’s look into his face, as if fascinated by some horror, she stumbled backwards into the chair in the chimney comer, and covered her face with her hands, moaning out some inarticulate words.

Philip was on his knees by her, dumb from excess of sympathy, kissing her dress, all unfelt by her; he murmured half-words, he began passionate sentences that died away upon his lips; and she—­she thought of nothing but her father, and was possessed and rapt out of herself by the dread of losing him to that fearful country which was almost like the grave to her, so all but impassable was the gulf.  But Philip knew that it was possible that the separation impending might be that of the dark, mysterious grave—­that the gulf between the father and child might indeed be that which no living, breathing, warm human creature can ever cross.

‘Sylvie, Sylvie!’ said he,—­and all their conversation had to be carried on in low tones and whispers, for fear of the listening ears above,—­’don’t,—­don’t, thou’rt rending my heart.  Oh, Sylvie, hearken.  There’s not a thing I’ll not do; there’s not a penny I’ve got,—­th’ last drop of blood that’s in me,—­I’ll give up my life for his.’

‘Life,’ said she, putting down her hands, and looking at him as if her looks could pierce his soul; ‘who talks o’ touching his life?  Thou’re going crazy, Philip, I think;’ but she did not think so, although she would fain have believed it.  In her keen agony she read his thoughts as though they were an open page; she sate there, upright and stony, the conviction creeping over her face like the grey shadow of death.  No more tears, no more trembling, almost no more breathing.  He could not bear to see her, and yet she held his eyes, and he feared to make the effort necessary to move or to turn away, lest the shunning motion should carry conviction to her heart.  Alas! conviction of the probable danger to her father’s life was already there:  it was that that was calming her down, tightening her muscles, bracing her nerves.  In that hour she lost all her early youth.

‘Then he may be hung,’ said she, low and solemnly, after a long pause.  Philip turned away his face, and did not utter a word.  Again deep silence, broken only by some homely sound in the kitchen.  ‘Mother must not know on it,’ said Sylvia, in the same tone in which she had spoken before.