The next day came a reaction from the excitement of her arrival, and Babiole was not able to leave her room until late in the afternoon. I had paid my duty-call at Oak Lodge in the morning, and had been disconcerted to find that common sense and philanthropy had grown less attractive than ever. Lucy expressed her intention of calling upon Mrs. Scott that very afternoon, and when I explained that she was tired and not likely to make her appearance before dinnertime, my philanthropist said she would drive round to Larkhall in the evening. From this pertinacity I concluded that Miss Farington was perhaps not so entirely free from human curiosity and perhaps feminine jealousy as she would have liked me to suppose. At any rate she kept me with her all day, an unquiet conscience having made me exceedingly docile; and it was six o'clock before I got home. I went straight into the drawing-room, where Babiole, lying on a sofa before one of the windows, was enjoying the warm light of the declining sun. 'Better?' said I simply, coming up to the sofa and looking down. All the energy and animation of the evening before were gone now; but to me Babiole never lost one charm without gaining a greater; she had been fascinating in a lively mood, she was irresistible in a quiet one. She gave me her hand and answered in a weak voice-- 'Yes, I'm better, thank you.' 'What have you been thinking about so quietly all by yourself? I don't fancy you ought to be allowed to think at all.' 'I've been thinking about poor papa. Have you heard anything more about him?' 'Yes, he's all right, I believe, settled down in Aberdeen. I don't think you'd better try to see him though. It might set him worrying again on the old subject, which perhaps he has forgotten.' She shook her head. 'You don't know papa as mamma and I do. He wastes his life so that people despise him, and believe that he cares for nothing but the day's enjoyment. But they are wrong. He is fierce and sullen, and he never forgets. He came up here to see _you_, and to do you harm; and he will never rest until at least he's tried to.' 'Well, he and I were very good friends, and there is nothing I should like better than to meet him and make him listen to reason--as I'm sure he would do.' 'He--he might not give you the chance.' I was pleased by her solicitude for me, but I showed her how very far-fetched her fears were, and assured her, moreover, that if Mr. Ellmer, with the brutal ferocity which had been ascribed to him, should ever go so far as to attack me personally, he would probably find his match in a man who lived so hardily as I. CHAPTER XXII