To this pleasant English home Mr. Merridew and his daughter returned in the month of February, after a wearisome but uneventful voyage and a week or two at the St. George's Hotel as a corrective. A distinguished physician had prescribed a month; but in ten days Nan had all the new clothes she needed, had seen all the plays she cared to see, and went in such fear of a certain topic of conversation, forced upon her by the heedless, that it was anguish to her to go about. So one of the carriages came up from Hertfordshire, and on a clear but chilly afternoon father and daughter drove home together. It was not a hearty homecoming. John Merridew had been many years a widower, whose only other child had died in infancy. But the old red house looked warm and kindly; the servants stood weeping through their smiles; the firelit rooms were all unchanged, save in their new promise of perfect privacy; and in her home it was grasped from the first that Miss Merridew could not bear to speak about the wreck of the _North Foreland_ and her own romantic rescue by one of the officers. Thus she had no occasion to explain that she was engaged to him; and Mr. Merridew left the announcement to Nan. "She has nothing on her mind, has she?" inquired old Dr. Stone after an early call as physician and friend. "She has the wreck on her mind," replied Mr. Merridew promptly. "She can't even speak of it, as you may have noticed." "I did notice, and that's why I ask. I saw the child into this world, my dear Merridew, and I want to dance at her wedding before I move on to the next. She didn't give her heart for her life, I suppose?" "You must ask her that yourself, doctor," the discreet father replied, meeting a penetrating look with a laugh. And a firm old friend retired dissatisfied and rather hurt. But so the engagement was kept a secret from the first.