"Oh, yes, it will. It was there all the time. It will be, more than ever now. She'll see by and by what you've saved her from." "What I tried to. Doesn't she see it now?" She had already told him the best. Beatrix's last word had been the message of love to him, but Caroline had had to struggle for it. "She's all upset," she said. "She can't see everything all at once. She's outraged at having been jilted; that was her word. She's indignant against him for lowering her in her own eyes. She almost seems to hate him now." "That's because she's angry with him. It doesn't mean that she won't feel it a lot before she's done." "No. She's hurt and angry all round." "Angry with me, then?" "No, not that. And at the end--I told you--she sent you her love, and a kiss. Oh, she does love you. But you'll have to be a little careful, Dad." "Careful, eh? She doesn't think I'm going to crow over her, does she?" "Of course not. And I told her how sweet you'd been about it--that you only wanted to help her to forget it." "Well, what's the trouble then?" She hesitated a little. "It was unreasonable," she said, "but if you hadn't sent him away, this wouldn't have happened." He was silent for a time, and she was a little alarmed. He had been much ruffled too; there were bristles to be smoothed away with him as well as with Beatrix. But she was too honest not to want to tell him everything. He relieved her immensely by laughing. "He's what she has found him out to be," he said, "and she's well out of it. But if I hadn't done what I did, she'd have been well in it by this time. Poor darling! She's been hurt, and she wants to hit out all round. I dare say she didn't spare you, did she?" Caroline laughed in her turn. "I didn't know anything about it," she said. "I didn't know what love meant. She has told me that before, you know. Perhaps I don't know what that sort of love means, and that's why I didn't think about it quite as you did, Dad. But she asked me to forgive her for saying that, and other things, before I left her. She's very sweet, poor darling. She hates hurting anybody." They sat silent for a time. The fire of logs wheezed and glowed in the open hearth. Round them was the deep stillness of the night and the sleeping house--that stillness of the country which brings with it a sense of security, so little likely is it to be disturbed, but also, sometimes, almost a sense of terror, if solitary nerves are on edge. To-night it was only peace that lapped them round, sitting there in full companionship and affection. Presently Grafton said, with a sigh of relief: "Thank God it's all over. I'm only just beginning to feel it. We shall be all together again. It has spoilt a lot of the pleasure of this place." "We've been here a year now," she said. "And we've had some very happy times. It's been better, even, than we thought it would."