any of her school friends being
invited to the house, while Mrs. Fenley, by reason of an unfortunate
failing, was a wretched automaton that ate and drank and slept, and
alternated between brief fits of delirium and prolonged periods of
stupor induced by drugs.

Still, until a murderous gunshot had torn away the veil of unreality
which enshrouded the household, Sylvia had contrived to avoid a
crisis. All day, during six days of the week, she was free in her own
realm. She had books and music, the woods, the park, and the gardens
to occupy busy hours. Unknown to any, her favorite amusement was the
planning of extensive foreign tours by such simple means as an atlas
and a set of guide books. She had a talent for sketching in water
color, and her own sanctum contained a dozen or more copious records
of imaginary journeys illustrated with singular accuracy of detail.

She was athletic in her tastes, too. She had fitted up a small
gymnasium, which she used daily. At her request, Mortimer Fenley
had laid out a nine-hole links in the park, and in her second golfing
year (the current one) Sylvia had gone around in bogey. She would
have excelled in tennis, but Robert Fenley was so much away from home
that she seldom got a game, while Hilton professed to be too tired
for strenuous exercise after long days in the City. She could ride
and drive, though forbidden to follow any of the local packs of
fox-hounds, and it has been seen that she was a first-rate swimmer.
Brodie, too, had taught her to drive a motor car, and she could
discourse learnedly on silencers and the Otto cycle.

On the whole, then, she was content, and hugged the conceit that when
she came of age she would be her own mistress and order her life as
she chose. The solitary defect of any real importance in the scheme of
things was Mortimer Fenley's growing insistence on her marriage to
Robert.

It was astounding, therefore, and quite bewildering, that Robert
Fenley should have hit on the day of his father's death to declare his
prosaic passion. He had motored back from London about four o'clock.
Hurrying to change his clothing for the attire demanded by convention
in hours of mourning, he sent a message to Sylvia asking her to meet
him at tea. Afterwards he took her into the garden, on the pretext
that she was looking pale and needed fresh air. There, without the
least preamble, he informed her that the day's occurrences had caused
him to fall in unreservedly wit