Page:The Fate of Fenella (1892).djvu/316

A privilege children share with animals is their inability to realize the meaning of sickness and sorrow, or suffering, at a distance. Though Ronny knew that he was being taken to see "Poor papa, who was ill," the knowledge did not bring home to him in any way the fact that he was in danger of losing his father. Fenella's prescience was keener; the words "seriously ill" pursued her like a maddening refrain throughout the whole long journey. In vain Jacynth represented to her that "seriously" did not signify the same thing as "dangerously." For the first time since he had known her, she showed a disposition to resent his consolatory speeches. On the steamer she hid herself away in the ladies' cabin, a proceeding which Jacynth knew to be contrary to all her instincts, and left him to smoke his cigar forlornly on the deck. She would not even give him the solace of taking charge of Ronny, but carried the little boy below into the petticoat atmosphere of the unwholesome stronghold she had selected. Jacynth therefore battled with his thoughts alone. He was better able than Ronny to realize the import of the telegram which had summoned him to Guernsey, and it must be admitted that he did his utmost to bring himself to hope that the issue would be such as his conscience and his sense of honor demanded that he should hope; for the consideration that Frank's death would transform the "might have been"