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him as the man she meant to marry. It was true she did
not often speak of him, but that might have been through lack of
sympathetic listeners. There was, moreover, about her an innate reserve
which held her back where her deepest feelings were concerned. But
her father knew, and she meant him to know, that neither time nor
distance had eradicated the image of the man she loved from her heart.
The days on which his letters reached her were always marked with a
secret gladness, albeit the letters themselves held sometimes little more
than affectionate commentary upon her own.
That Guy was making his way and that he would eventually return to
her were practical certainties in her young mind. If his letters contained
little to support this belief, she yet never questioned it for a moment.
Guy was the sort to get on. She was sure of it. And he was worth
waiting for. Oh, she could afford to be patient for Guy. She did not,
moreover, believe that her father would hold out for ever. Also, and
secretly this thought buoyed her up in rare moments of depression, in
another two years--when she was twenty-five--she would inherit some
money from her mother. It was not a very large sum, but it would be
enough to render her independent. It would very greatly increase her
liberty of action. She had little doubt that the very fact of it would help
to overcome her father's prejudices and very considerably modify his
attitude.
So, in a fashion, she had during the past three years come to regard her

twenty-fifth birthday as a milestone in her life. She would be patient till
it came, but then--at last--if circumstances permitted, she would take
her fate into her own hands, She would--at last--assume the direction of
her own life.
So she had planned, but so it was not to be. Her fate had already begun
to shape itself in a fashion that was little to her liking. Travelling with
her father in the North earlier in the summer, she had met with a slight
accident which had compelled her to make the acquaintance of a lady
staying at the same hotel whom she had disliked at the outset and
always sought to avoid. This lady, Mrs. Emmott, was a widow with no
settled home. Profiting by circumstances she had attached herself to
Sylvia and her father, and now she was the latter's wife.
How it had come about, even now Sylvia scarcely realized. The
woman's intentions had barely begun to dawn upon her before they had
become accomplished fact. Her father's attitude throughout had amazed
her, so astoundingly easy had been his capture. He was infatuated,
possibly for the first time in his life, and no influence of hers could
remove the spell.
Sylvia's feelings for Mrs. Emmott passed very rapidly from dislike to
active detestation. Her iron strength of will, combined with an almost
blatant vulgarity, gave the girl a sense of being borne down by an
irresistible weight. Very soon her aversion became such that it was
impossible to conceal it. And Mrs. Emmott laughed in her face. She
hated Sylvia too, but she looked forward to subduing the unbending
pride that so coldly withstood her, and for the sake of that she kept her
animosity in check. She knew her turn would come.
Meantime, she concentrated all her energies upon the father, and with
such marked success that within two months of their meeting they were
married. Sylvia had gone to that wedding in such bitterness of soul and
seething inward revolt as she had never experienced before. She did not
know how she had come through it, so great had been her disgust. But
that was nearly six weeks ago, and she had had time to recover. She
had spent part of that period very peacefully and happily at the seaside
with a young married cousin and her babies, and it had rested and

refreshed her. She had come back with a calm resolve to endure what
had to be endured in a philosophical spirit, to face the inevitable
without futile rebellion.
Girt in an impenetrable armour of reserve, she braced herself to bear
her burdens unflinching, so that none might ever guess how it galled
her. And on that golden evening in September she prepared herself with
a smiling countenance to meet her enemy in the gate.
They were returning from a prolonged honeymoon among the Italian
lakes, and she had made everything ready for their coming. The great
west-facing bedroom, which her father had never occupied since her
mother's death, had been redecorated and prepared as for a bride.
Sylvia had changed it completely, so that it might never again look as it
had looked in the