l dining-table Mrs. Pendleton was able to
watch her niece unnoticed, because the flowers occupied such an
unreasonably large space on the little round table set for three. Besides,
Sisily had been engrossed in her own thoughts throughout the meal. Mrs.
Pendleton was disturbed by her quietness. There was something unnatural
about it--something not girlish. She had not spoken once during the drive
from Flint House to Penzance, and she sat through dinner with a still
white face, silent, and hardly eating anything.

Mrs. Pendleton supposed Sisily was fretting over her mother, but she did
not understand a girl whose grief took the form of silence and stillness.
She would have preferred a niece who would have sobbed out her grief on
her shoulder, been reasonably comforted, and eaten a good dinner
afterwards. But Sisily was not that kind of girl. She was strange and
unapproachable. There was something almost repellent in her reserve,
something in her dark preoccupied gaze which made Mrs. Pendleton feel
quite nervous, and unfeignedly relieved when Sisily had asked to be
allowed to go to her room immediately the meal was concluded.

As she sat at the table, reviewing the events of the afternoon, after the
girl had taken her departure, Mrs. Pendleton regretted that she had
consented to take charge of Sisily. She flattered herself that she was
sufficiently modern not to care a row of pins for the stigma on the girl's
birth, but there were awkward circumstances, and not the least of them was
her own rash promise to break the news to Sisily that she was
illegitimate. That disclosure was not likely to help their future
relations together. Mrs. Pendleton reflected that she knew very little
about her niece, whom she had not seen since she was a small girl, but the
recollection of her set face and tragic eyes at the dinner table impelled
prompt recognition of the fact that she was going to be difficult to
manage.

But there was more than that. With a feeling of dismay Mrs. Pendleton's
mind awoke to a belated realization of the scandal which would fasten on
Sisily and her birth if Robert succeeded in establishing his claim to the
title. A peer of the realm with an illegitimate, disinherited daughter!
The story would be pounced upon by a sensational press, avid for precisely
such topics. In imagination Mrs. Pendleton saw the flaming headlines, the
photographs, and the highly spiced reports in which every detail of her
brother's private