Cynthia's father did not get his question answered, because at that moment a thundering knock at the front-door announced the return of Madame, and there was rather a hasty struggle to get him away from the house without encountering that lady's sharp eyes and vivacious questioning, which Cynthia was not at all sure that he could meet with equanimity. For herself she felt at that moment equal to any struggle involving either cunning or courage. She could combat to death for one she loved. "Who was that man, _carissima_? Why was he here at this hour of the night? You are a little imprudent, are you not, to receive such visitors without me?" said Madame, having caught a glimpse of the intruder's retiring figure. Cynthia laughed. "He is venerable, Madame--white-bearded, old, and a relative--an uncle from America whom I have not seen since I was a child. I believe that he has made a fortune and wants to endow me with it. We shall see!" "Ah, my angel, if he would do that," cried Madame cheerfully, "we would welcome him at any hour of the day or night, would not we? Bid him to dinner with thee, little one, or to tea, after thy English fashion--as thou wilt. The uncle with money is always a desired visitor." And thus Cynthia escaped further questioning, although at the cost of an untruth which she did not consider it her duty to repent. "For surely," she said to herself, "it is right for a daughter to sacrifice anything and everything to her father's safety! I was ashamed of having to tell Hubert what was not true just for my own benefit; but I am not ashamed of deceiving Madame for my father's sake. I am sorry--ah, yes, I am sorry! But what can I do?" And in the solitude of her own room Cynthia wrung her hands together, and shed a few bitter tears over the hardness and strangeness of her fate. To one who knew all the facts of her story and her father's story, it might indeed have been a matter for meditation that "wrong-doing never ends"--that, because Sydney Vane had been an unprincipled man and Florence Lepel a woman without a conscience, therefore a child of whom they never heard had grown up without the presence of a father's love, or the innate reverence for truth that prevailed in the heart of a Jeanie Deans. Cynthia was no Jeanie Deans; she was a faulty but noble-hearted woman, with a nature that had suffered some slight warping from the effect of adverse circumstance.