Mollie answered to his sudden impulse as a boat answers at once to its helm. "Yes," she said simply. "I'll do what you want. Mr. Mercer, I think you have been making mistakes. I'll ask you to leave us now." She had moved to Bertie's side. He put his hand on her shoulder, and they stood there together facing the astonished Vicar. Something fixed and sure in their conjunction penetrated the noxious mists of his mind, and he saw that he had made one hideous mistake after another. Shame overtook him, and he made one last effort to catch at the vanishing skirts of his dignity. "Oh, if it's like that," he said with a gulp, "I should like to be the first to congratulate you." He held out his hand. Neither of them made any motion to take it, but stood there together looking at him until he had turned and left the room. Then at last they were alone together. CHAPTER XXIV SUNDAY Grafton got up on Sunday morning and carried his cup of tea along the corridor towards Caroline's room, but met the girls' maid who told him that Miss Beatrix wanted him to go and see her. He felt a little glow of pleasure at the message. The evening before Beatrix had been very gay and loving with him. They had spent a family evening, talking over the events of the day, and playing a rubber of bridge, which had not been succeeded by another because their talk had so amused them. There had been no shadow of the trouble that had of late overcast their happy family intimacy. Lassigny was as far removed from them in spirit as he was in body. Beatrix had been her old-time self, and in high, untroubled spirits, which kept them all going, as she most of all of them could do if she were in one of her merry extravagant moods. She had said "Good-night, my darling old Daddy," with her arm thrown round his neck, when they had parted at a comparatively early hour, owing to the fatigues of the day. She had not bid him good-night like that for months past, though there had been times when her attitude almost of hostility towards him had relaxed. But for the closing down again that had followed those relaxations he might have comforted himself with the reflection that the trouble between them was over. But he had become wary. Her exhibition of affection had sent him to bed happy, but on rising in the morning he had set out for Caroline's room and not for hers. He had jibbed at the thought of that photograph of Lassigny, propped for her opening eye. The summons, however, seemed to show that the respite had not yet run its course, and he went to her gladly. She was sitting up in bed with a letter in her hand. Her tea-tray was on the table by her side, and Lassigny's photograph was not. But perhaps she had put it under her pillow. She looked a very child, in her blue silk pyjamas, with her pretty fair hair tumbling over her shoulders. "Such an excitement, Dad," she said, holding up the letter. "I have sent for the others, but I wanted to tell you first. It's Mollie."