“And what reason is there with you? Only what ought to be an additional reason for going--that you have----” Here Constance paused a little, and grew pale. And her father looked up at her, growing pale too, anticipating a crisis. Another word, and he would be able to crush this young rebel, this meddler with things which concerned her not. But Constance was better advised; she said, hurriedly--“relations and dependants, and ever so many things to look to--things that cannot be settled without you.” “And what may these be?” He had been so fully prepared for the introduction at this point of the mother, from whom Constance, too, had fled--the wife, who was, as he said to himself, the cause of all that was inharmonious in his own life--that the withdrawal of her name left him breathless, with the force of an impulse which was not needed. “What are the things that cannot be settled without me?” “Well--for one thing, papa, your daughter’s marriage,” said Constance, still looking at him steadily, but with a sudden glow of colour covering her face. “My daughter’s marriage?” he repeated, vaguely, once more taken by surprise. “What! has Frances already, in the course of a few weeks----?” “It is very probable,” said Constance, calmly. “But I was not thinking of Frances. Perhaps you forget that I am your daughter too, and that your sanction is needed for me as well as for her.” Here Waring leant towards her over the table. “Is this how it has ended?” he said. “Have you really so little perception of what is possible for a girl of your breeding, as to think that a life in India with young Gaunt----?” Constance grew crimson from her hair to the edge of her white dress. “Captain Gaunt?” she said, for the first time avoiding her father’s eye. Then she burst into a laugh, which she felt was weak and half hysterical in its self-consciousness. “Oh no,” she said; “that was only amusement--that was nothing. I hope, indeed, I have a little more--perception, as you say. What I meant was----” Her eyes took a softened look, almost of entreaty, as if she wanted him to help her out. “I did not know you had any second string to your bow,” he said. Now was his time to avenge himself, and he took advantage of it. “Papa,” said Constance, drawing herself up majestically, “I have no second string to my bow. I have made a mistake. It is a thing which may happen to any one. But when one does so, and sees it, the thing to do is to acknowledge and remedy it, I think. Some people, I am aware, are not of the same opinion. But I, for one, am not going to keep it up.” “You refer to--a mistake which has not been acknowledged?”