Surprised by her mother’s unaccustomed confidence in her, Nadia obeyed, and was further astonished to find herself consulted as to the wording of the telegram which was to warn the O’Malachy not to repeat his indiscretion, but to maintain a strict silence on the subject of his daughter in future. Several forms were wasted before the message satisfied Madame O’Malachy, but she did not breathe freely until Nadia had taken it to the post-office. As soon as she had time to think, she made a mental resolution to seize any papers other than merely local ones which might enter the house, and destroy them before Nadia could see them. This measure was imperatively necessary, if there was to be any peace in the family; for even her intrepid spirit quailed when she pictured to herself the scene which would ensue if Nadia discovered the construction which the O’Malachy, or the reporters of his words, had placed upon Caerleon’s treatment of her. To Madame O’Malachy, whose common-sense was one of her strongest points, the state of mind in which her husband could choose to boast of the long-past glories of his race, while he did his best at the same moment to proclaim that his daughter had been most cruelly jilted, was incomparably absurd, and the telegram she sent him was short and sharp. The injury inflicted upon Nadia’s future by the publication of a report such as he had set on foot touched her keenly, for all her hopes for old age were based upon the possibility of her daughter’s making a brilliant marriage; and to have her name bandied about in such a connection could not but militate against her prospects. Trouble caused by an incident of this kind she could understand and sympathise with, while Nadia’s refusal of Caerleon and the reasons for it were a sealed book to her, and she was unusually kind to the girl during that day and the next. But on the second evening her sympathy seemed to have exhausted itself, for her manner once more became brusque and her tone sarcastic, and Nadia, whose spirits had risen under the influence of the change in her mother, realised that her presence was no longer desired in the sitting-room. As she opened the door a sudden impulse made her return to the table at which Madame O’Malachy was busied with her writing materials. “If you are planning anything against _him_, spare him for my sake,” she said in a low voice, and stopped suddenly, amazed at her own temerity. “Go to bed; you are a little fool,” returned her mother, scathingly. Nadia’s sleep was much disturbed that night. Two or three times she thought she heard stealthy steps in the passage, and once the unmistakable sound of the shutting of a door. She could not rid herself of the idea that some deadly blow was being prepared against Caerleon; there were evil possibilities in the slightest noise that reached her ears as she lay awake trembling and listening. She cried herself to sleep at last, and was only awakened in the morning by a voice at her door.