Page:Lord of the World - Benson - 1908.djvu/110

80 CHAPTER V

I

was an exclamation, then silence, as a tall, beautiful girl with flushed face and shining grey eyes came forward and stopped, followed by a man whom Percy knew at once from his pictures. A little whimpering sounded from the bed, and the priest lifted his hand instinctively to silence it.

"Why," said Mabel; and then stared at the man with the young face and the white hair.

Oliver opened his lips and closed them again. He, too, had a strange excitement in his face. Then he spoke.

"Who is this?" he said deliberately.

"Oliver," cried the girl, turning to him abruptly, "this is the priest I saw"

"A priest!" said the other, and came forward a step. "Why, I thought"

Percy drew a breath to steady that maddening vibration in his throat.

"Yes, I am a priest," he said.

Again the whimpering broke out from the bed; and Percy, half turning again to silence it, saw the girl mechanically loosen the clasp of the thin dust cloak over her white dress.

"You sent for him, mother?" snapped the man, with a tremble in his voice, and with a sudden jerk forward of his whole body. But the girl put out her hand.

"Quietly, my dear," she said. "Now, sir"