'As to the match, cousin, there are as good fish in the sea as ever came out of it. As to the public talk, it is better to be talked about for a week or two than to have a life's unhappiness. That is the sole point with which I concern myself.' Dorothy, with a softened face now, got up and kissed her father. 'That is right dear,' he said. 'Now let us put the matter aside for the present. I have been busy all the morning and want my lunch badly; so even if you are not hungry yourself, come down and keep me company. Come, cousin, dry your eyes, and put your cap straight, and come down to lunch.' 'Food would choke me,' Mrs. Daintree said; 'I have a dreadful headache, and shall go and lie down.' CHAPTER VIII 'Mr. Danvers is in the library, sir,' a servant announced at nine o'clock that evening. 'Will you come down, Dorothy?' 'No, father, I do not want to hear what is said. No doubt he will suppose I took the diamonds.' 'No, no, my dear, you should not say that.' 'But I do say that, father. When even Captain Hampton was willing enough to believe me guilty, what can I expect from others?' 'You are too hard on Ned altogether, Dorothy, a great deal too hard. He spent a month of his leave entirely in your service, and now because he could not disbelieve the evidence of his own eyes you turn against him.' 'I am obliged to him for the trouble he has taken, father, but that is not what I want at present. I want trust; and I thought that if any one would have given it to me fully it would have been Ned Hampton, and nothing would have made me doubt him.' 'Well, my dear,' her father said, dryly, 'you may think so now, but if you were to see him filling his pockets out of a bank till, I fancy for a moment your trust in him would waver. However, I will go down to Danvers.' He returned at the end of twenty minutes.