“And ruined, also,” he continued, putting the interruption aside, “a great part of mine. At your age I do not think fit to tell you—all. It is enough, that she has robbed me of you, and deceived me. Deceived me,” he repeated, more bitterly, “through long years when you, my daughter, might have been my comfort and—” he ended, almost inaudibly, “my joy.” He turned his back on her with the word and began to walk the room, his chin sunk on his breast, his hands clasped. It was clear to Mary, watching him with loving, pitying eyes, that his thoughts were with the unhappy past, with the short fever, the ignoble contentions of his married life, or with the lonely, soured years which had followed. She felt that he was laying to his wife’s charge the wreck of his life, and the slow dry-rot which had sapped hope, and strength, and development. Mary waited until his step trod the carpet less hurriedly. Then, as he paused to turn, she stepped forward. “Yet, sir—forgive her!” she cried. And there were warm tears in her voice. He turned and looked at her. Possibly he was astonished at her persistence. “Never!” he said in a tone of finality. “Never! Let that be the end.” But Mary had been dreaming of this moment for days. And she had resolved that, come what might, though he frown, though his tone grow hard and his eye angry, though he bring to bear on her the stern command of his eagle visage, she would not be found lacking a second time. She would not again give way to her besetting weakness, and spend sleepless nights in futile remorse. Diffidence in the lonely schoolmistress had been pardonable, had been natural. But now, if she were indeed sprung from those who had a right to hold their heads above the crowd, if the doffed hats which greeted her when she went abroad, in the streets of Chippinge as well as in the lanes and roads,—if these meant anything—shame on her if she proved craven. “It cannot be the end, sir,” she said, in a low voice. “For she is—still my mother. And she is alone and ill—and she needs me.” He had begun to pace the room anew, this time with an impatient, angry step. But at that he stood and faced her, and she needed all her courage to support the gloom of his look. “How do you know?” he said. For Miss Sibson, discharging an ungrateful task, had not entered into details. “Have you seen her?” She felt that she must judge for herself; and though her mother had said something to the contrary, and hitherto she had obeyed her, she thought it best to tell all. “Yes, sir,” she said. “When?” “A fortnight ago?” She trembled under the growing darkness of his look. “Here?” “In the grounds, sir.” “And you never told me!” he cried. “You never told me!” he repeated, with a strange glance, a glance which strove with terror to discern the mother’s features in the daughter’s face. “You, too—you, too, have begun to deceive me!” And he threw up his hands in despair. “Oh, no! no!” Mary cried, infinitely distressed.