Read "Sea Mew Abbey" by Florence Warden online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
Freda fancied that the long-drawn breath which escaped her as she recognised the man must attract his attention. But he was too intent upon the enjoyment of the strong spirit, which he kept pouring from a huge stone bottle into a cracked tumbler, to have eyes or ears for the little eavesdropper in the corner. A horrible idea flashed into her mind as she crouched again in her hiding-place: Was this grinning creature, with the hideous face of an ape, the father she had waited to know so long? A shiver of horror ran through her as she remembered how this would tally with the facts she knew: with the dread in which her father was held, with her belief that he was in hiding about the house, and with the airs of proprietorship which this man was assuming.
Even as these unwelcome thoughts pressed into her mind, the man got up, and confirming her fears by his tone of authority, stamped upon the floor and called down the opening in a loud voice: