She sat quite silent, thinking it all over, not perceiving her father’s embarrassment--thinking less of him, indeed, than of all the wonderful new things that seemed to crowd about her. She did not blame him. She was not thinking enough of him to blame him; her mind was quite sufficiently occupied by her discoveries. As she had taken him all her life without examination, she continued to take him. He was her father; that was enough. It did not occur to her to ask herself whether what he had done was right or wrong. Only, it was all very strange. The old solid earth had gone from under her feet, and the old order of things had been overthrown. She was looking out upon a world not realised--a spectator of something like the throes of creation, seeing the new landscape tremble and roll into place, the heights and hollows all changing; there was a great deal of excitement in it, both pain and pleasure. It occupied her so fully, that he fell back into a secondary place. But this did not occur to Waring. He had not realised that it could be possible. He felt himself the centre of the system in which his little daughter lived, and did not understand how she could ignore him. He thought her silence--the silence of amazement, and excitement, and of that curious spectatorship--was the silence of reproach, and that her mind was full of a sense of wrong, which only duty kept in check. He felt himself on his trial before her. Having said all that he had to say, he remained silent, expecting her response. If she had given vent to an indignant exclamation, he would have been relieved; he would have allowed that she had a right to be indignant. But her silence was more than he could bear. He searched through the recesses of his own thoughts; but for the moment he could not find any further excuse for himself. He had done it for the best. Probably she would not see that. Waring was well enough acquainted with the human mind to know that every individual sees such a question from his or her own point of view: and he was prepared to find that his daughter would be unable to perceive what was so plain to him. But still he was aware that he had done it for the best. After a while the silence became so irksome to him that he felt compelled to break it and resume his explanations. If she would not say anything, there were a number of things which he might say. “It is a pity,” he said, “that it has all broken upon you so suddenly. If I could have divined that Constance would have taken such a step---- To tell you the truth, I have never realised Constance at all,” he added, with an impulse towards the daughter he knew. “She was of course a mere child: to see her so independent, and with so distinct a will of her own, is very bewildering. I assure you, Frances, if it is wonderful to you, it is scarcely less wonderful to me.”