"Miss Halcyone La Sarthe was fetched away on last Thursday by her
stepmother--I did not hear the name--and no one knows where she has
gone. La Sarthe Chase is shut up."
John Derringham closed his eyes--his powers of reasoning were not strong
enough yet to grasp the actual meaning of this--it seemed to him as
though Halcyone were dead, taken away from him by some fate and that all
things were at an end.
Arabella grew very frightened.
"Mr. Carlyon telegraphs from London every day," she ventured to
announce.
But this appeared to bring no comfort, and the nurse returning, signed
to her to leave the room, for John Derringham lay still as one dead.
And, when Arabella arrived at her own sanctum, she burst into tears.
What a fool she had been to tell him that, she felt.
All these days, Halcyone passed in a repressed agony in spite of her
prayers and unshaken beliefs. She knew it was her winter time and she
must bear it until the spring should come, though it was none the less
hard to support. But she got through the hours with perfect surface
calm--and her stepsisters thought her stupid and dull, while Mrs.
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