“Well, I thought so at the time. I wanted to do what was right. But there was no right in the matter. I had a perfect right to take you both away, to bring you up as I pleased. It would have been better, perhaps, had I done what the law authorised me to do. However, that need not be gone into now. What your sister said was quite true. You are at an age when you are supposed to be able to judge for yourself, and nobody in the world can force you to go where you don’t want to go.” “But if you promised, and if--my mother trusted to your promise?” There was something more solemn in that title than to say “mamma.” It seemed easier to apply it to the unknown. “I won’t have you made a sacrifice of on my account,” he said, hastily. He was surprised by her composure, by that unwonted light in her eyes. She answered him with great gravity, slowly, as if conscious of the importance of her conclusion. “It would be no sacrifice,” she said. Waring, there could be no doubt, was very much startled. He could not believe his ears. “No sacrifice? Do you mean to say that you want to leave me?” he cried. “No, papa: that is, I did not. I knew nothing. But now that I know, if my mother wants me, I will go to her. It is my duty. And I should like it,” she added, after a pause. Waring was dumb with surprise and dismay. He stared at her, scarcely able to believe that she could understand what she was saying--he, who had been afraid to suggest anything of the kind, who had thought of Andromeda and the virgins who were sacrificed to the dragon. He gazed aghast at this new aspect of the face with which he was so familiar, the uplifted head and shining eyes. He could not believe that this was Frances, his always docile, submissive, unemancipated girl. “Papa,” she said, “everything seems changed, and I too. I want to know my mother; I want to see--how other people live.” “Other people!” He was glad of an outlet for his irritation. “What have we to do with other people? If it had not been for this unlucky arrival, you would never have known.” “I must have known some time,” she said. “And do you think it right that a girl should not know her mother--when she has a mother? I want to go to her, papa.” He flung out of his chair with an angry movement, and took up the keys which lay on his table and opened a small cabinet which stood in the corner of the room, Frances watching him all the time with the greatest attention. Out of this he brought a small packet of letters, and threw them to her with a movement which, for so gentle a man, was almost violent. “I kept these back for your good, not to disturb your mind. You may as well have them, since they belong to you--now,” he said. CHAPTER XIII. “Come out for a walk, papa,” said Constance. “What! in the heat of the day? You think you are in England.”