The Way Home by Henry Handel Richardson — Read

The old mahogany fourposter with the red rep hangings had been brought out from among the lumber, and set up afresh in John's study. And soon after his interview with Mahony John shifted his quarters to this room, on the pretence of sleeping poorly and disturbing his wife. Lizzie raised fierce objections to the change. It took Mary to mollify her, and to insist that she must now place her own health and comfort above everything. Save in this one point, it was true, Lizzie needed small persuasion. The household danced to her whims.

Emmy's room was only a trifle nearer the study than the other bedrooms; but in everything that touched her father the girl's senses were preternaturally acute. And so it happened that she started out of her first sleep, wakened she did not know by what, but conscious, even as she opened her eyes, of sounds coming from her father's room--the strange, heart-rending sounds of a man crying. Sitting up in bed, her hands pressed to her breast, Emmy listened till she could bear it no longer: stealthily unlatching the door, she crept down the passage to the study. And there, on this and many another night, she lay crouched on the mat, her heart bursting with love and pity; while John, believing himself alone with his Maker, railed and rebelled, in blind anguish, against his fate. Yes, Emmy knew before any one else that some disaster had come upon her father. And in the riot of emotion the knowledge stirred in her, there was one drop of sweetness: she alone shared his secret.