Mrs Clarendon turned round upon her with a start of astonishment. Through the semi-darkness of that London day, which was not much more than twilight through the white curtains, the elder woman looked round upon the girl, quivering with indignation and resentment, to whom she had supposed herself entitled to say what she pleased without fear of calling forth any response of indignation. When she saw the tremor in the little figure standing against the light, the agitated movement of the hands, she was suddenly brought back to herself. It flashed across her at once that the sudden withdrawal of Frances, whom she had welcomed so warmly as her brother’s favourite child, would be a triumph for Lady Markham, already no doubt very triumphant in the unveiling of her husband’s hiding-place and the recovery of the child, and in the fact that Frances resembled herself, and not the father. To let that enemy understand that she, Waring’s sister, could not secure the affection of Waring’s child, was something which Mrs Clarendon could not face. “Go--where?” she said. “You forget that you have come to spend the day with me. My lady will not expect you till the evening; and I do not suppose you can wish to expose your father’s sister to her remarks.” “My mother,” said Frances with an almost sob of emotion, “must be more to me than my father’s sister. Oh, aunt Caroline,” she cried, “you have been very, very hard upon me. I lived as a child lives at home till Constance came, I had never known anything else. Why should I have asked questions? I did not know I had a mother. I thought it was cruel, when I first heard; and now you say it was my fault.” “It must have been more or less your fault. A girl has no right to be so simple. You ought to have inquired; you ought to have given him no rest; you ought----” “I will tell you,” said Frances, “what I was brought up to do: not to trouble papa; that was all I knew from the time I was a baby. I don’t know who taught me--perhaps Mariuccia, perhaps, only--everything. I was not to trouble him, whatever I did. I was never to cry, nor even to laugh too loud, nor to make a noise, nor to ask questions. Mariuccia and Domenico and every one had only this thought--not to disturb papa. He was always very kind,” she went on, softening, her eyes filling again. “Sometimes he would be displeased about the dinner, or if his papers were disturbed. I dusted them myself, and was very careful; but sometimes that put him out. But he was very kind. He always came to the loggia in the evening, except when he was busy. He used to tell me when my perspective was wrong, and laugh at me, but not to hurt. I think you are mistaken, aunt Caroline, about papa.”