One or two of her fellow voyagers wondered at
the deep flush on her face, but forgot it the next moment. It was a
stain which was not entirely to fade from Sylvia's face and body for
many days to come.
CHAPTER XX
"BLOW, WIND; SWELL, BILLOW; AND SWIM, BARK!"
She reached home, as she had thought, before ten o'clock, her
unexpected arrival occasioning the usual flurry of exclamation and
question not to be suppressed even by the most self-contained family
with a fixed desire to let its members alone, and a firm tradition of
not interfering in their private affairs. Judith had come home before
her father and now looked up from her game of checkers with wondering
eyes. Sylvia explained that she was not sick, and that nothing had
happened to break up or disturb the house-party. "I just _felt_ like
coming home, that's all!" she said irritably, touched on the raw by
the friendly loving eyes and voices about her. She was glad at least
that her father was not at home. That was one less to look at her.
"Well, get along to bed with you!" said her mother, in answer to her
impatient explanation. "And, you children--keep still! Don't bother
her!"
Sylvia crept upstairs into the whiteness of her own slant-ceilinged
room, and without lighting a lamp sat down on the bed. Her knees shook
under her. She made no move to take off her furs or hat. She felt no
emotion, only a leaden fatigue and lameness as though she had been
beaten.
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