Against her every wish,
that smile forced itself upon Sylvia's recollections as she drove home.
She tried to interpret it in every pleasant sense, but it kept its true
character in her thoughts, try as she might. It remained vividly a very
hateful thing--the smile of the man who had gulled her.
CHAPTER XII
THE HOUSE OF THE RUNNING WATER
A week later, on a sunlit afternoon, Sylvia and her father drove
northward out of Weymouth between the marshes and the bay. Sylvia was
silent and looked about her with expectant eyes.
"I have been lucky, Sylvia," her father had said to her. "I have secured
for our summer holiday the very house in which you were born. It cost me
some trouble, but I was determined to get it if I could, for I had an
idea that you would be pleased. However, you are not to see it until it
is quite ready."
There was a prettiness and a delicacy in this thought which greatly
appealed to Sylvia. He had spoken it with a smile of tenderness.
Affection, surely, could alone have prompted it; and she thanked him very
gratefully. They were now upon their way to take possession. A little
white house set back under a hill and looking out across the bay from a
thick cluster of trees caught Sylvia's eye. Was that the house, she
wondered? The carriage turned inland and passed the white house, and half
a mile further on turned again eastward along the road to Wareham,
following the valley, which runs parallel to the sea.
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