Why, they don't know to this
day that they are dead."
Robin was silent. He was afraid to speak lest anything he said should
remind her of the part she ought to be playing. He had no doubt now
at all that she was keeping a secret. A hundred questions were burning
on his lips. He hated himself for wanting to ask them, for being so
inquisitive, for taking advantage of the girl's being off her guard,
but what are you to do with your inherited failings? Robin's mother
was inquisitive and it had got into his blood, and I know of no moral
magnesia that will purify these things away. "You said the other day,"
he burst out at last, quite unable to stop himself, "that you only had
your uncle in the world. Are your sisters--are they in London?"
"In London?" Priscilla gazed at him a moment with a vague surprise.
Then fright flashed into her eyes. "Did I not tell you they were dead?
Smothered?" she said, getting up quickly, her face setting into the
frown that had so chilled Tussie on the heath.
"But I took that as a parable."
"How can I help how you took it?"
And she instantly left him and went away round the tables, beginning
those little pleasant observations to the children again that struck
him as so strange.
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