them now!" said Sylvia steadily. "In one minute,
aunt, just one minute. You go down and pour out my tea, and I'll follow
immediately. I've just one thing more I want to do."

"Don't dawdle, then--don't dawdle! Mary will fasten the straps--don't
wait for that."

Miss Munns departed, unwillingly enough, and Sylvia shut the door after
her, and gave a swift step back towards the bed. The satin dress, and
the fan, and the gloves, and the jaunty little shoes lay there looking
precisely the same as they had done an hour ago--the only difference was
in the eyes which beheld them.

Sylvia had read of a bride who was buried in her wedding dress, and she
felt at this moment as if she were leaving her own girlhood behind, with
that mass of dainty white finery. What lay in the future she could not
tell; only one thing seemed certain, that those few words on the slip of
brown paper had made a great chasm of separation between it and the
past. The opportunity for which she had longed was not to be hers; she
must leave England without so much as a word of farewell to the friends
who of late had filled such a large part of her life.

If her plans had been frustrated by one of the annoying little
_contretemps_ of daily life, Sylvia would have exhausted herself in
lamentations and repinings, but she was dumb before this great
catastrophe, which came so obviously from a higher Hand. When her
father lay dying, there was no regret in her heart for a lost amusement,
but this hurried departure might mean more--much more than the
forfeiture of Esmeralda's hospitality. She stretched out her hand, and
smoothed the satin folds with a very tender touch.

"Good-bye!" she whispered softly, in the silence of the room. "Good-
bye, Jack!"

CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR.

TOO LATE.

Sylvia's journey was quiet and uneventful, and her companion was
tactfully silent, leaving her at peace to think her own thoughts. As
time passed by, the natural hopefulness of youth reasserted itself, and
she began to think that she had been too hasty in taking it for granted
that her father was hopelessly ill.

After all he had not despatched the telegram; it had been signed by his
friends, the Nisbets, who, no doubt, were unwilling to accept a position
of responsibility. When she arrived she would nurse him so devotedly,
would surround him with such an atmosphere of love and care, that he
could not help recovering and growing strong once more. He would be