"I do trust--your father's daughter," he said, hoarsely. "I trust her above all women living!--God knows that I do. You did not love Oliver? It was not to _him_ that you made some promise you spoke of--some promise against engaging yourself?" "It was to my mother," said Lesley, simply. "I am sorry that I did not make you understand." He took a quick step nearer. "May I say more?" She shook her head. "But--some day?" "Not now," she answered, softly. But a very faint and tremulous smile quivered for one moment on her lips. "It is very wrong to talk of ourselves just now. Go on with your story--tell me about my dear, dearest father." "I will," said Maurice. "I will do exactly what you wish--_just now_"--with a great accent on the last two words. "We will talk about that promise at a more fitting time, Lesley--I may call you Lesley, may I not? There is no harm in that, for you are like a sister to my poor Ethel, and you may as well let me be a brother to you, dear, _just now_. Well, Lesley"--how he lingered over the name!--"Mrs. Trent says that she returned to your house on Monday afternoon in order to warn your father of what was going, on----" "Oh! Did she really?" "Yes, for your father tells me she did so. She also told him various stories of Oliver's baseness, which he felt it his duty to inquire into, and in order that, he might have an interview with Oliver, she arranged with him to come that night to the house in Whitechapel, where she and her husband were living. There she was to confront him with Oliver, and she said that in _her_ presence he would not dare to deny that her tales were true." "But why did father agree to that? Why did he want to find out?" "For Ethel's sake. He wanted to protect her. If Mrs. Trent could prove her stories, he meant to expose Oliver to Ethel and myself, if it were but an hour before her marriage----" "And why didn't he?" demanded Lesley, breathlessly. "Because--here comes in your father's evidence--your father assures me that when he reached the house that night and confronted Oliver, the woman took back every word that she had uttered, and declared that it was all a lie. And Oliver, of course, persisted that he had done nothing amiss. Your father says he was so much tempted to strike Oliver to the ground--for he did not believe in Kingston's retractation--that he flung his stick out upon the landing lest he should use it too effectually. He forgot to pick it up, and came away without it. The pocket-book must of course have fallen out of his pocket as he left the house." "Then he could not convict Mr. Trent of anything?" "No, and so he did not feel justified in meddling. But he wishes that he had gone to Ethel at once--or that I had been at home and that he had come to me. He is reproaching himself terribly for his silence now." "As I have been reproaching myself for mine," said Lesley.