I say the police were beaten
and the troops alarmed; and I say this was done without
organization and in a single spot. I am as much against
feeble deeds as you can be, Sybil; and to prove this to you,
our conversation at the moment you arrived, was to take care
for the future that there shall be none. Neither vain words
nor feeble deeds for the future," added Gerard, and he moved
to depart.
Sybil approached him with gentleness; she took his hand as if
to bid him farewell; she retained it for a moment, and looked
at him steadfastly in the face, with a glance at the same time
serious and soft. Then throwing her arms round his neck and
leaning her cheek upon his breast, she murmured, "Oh! my
father, your child is most unhappy."
"Sybil," exclaimed Gerard in a tone of tender reproach, "this
is womanish weakness; I love, but must not share it."
"It may be womanish," said Sybil, "but it is wise: for what
should make us unhappy if not the sense of impending, yet
unknown, danger?"
"And why danger?" said Gerard.
"Why mystery?" said Sybil. "Why are you ever pre-occupied and
involved in dark thoughts, my father? It is not the pressure
of business, as you will perhaps tell me, that occasions this
change in a disposition so frank and even careless.
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