An evil case for these poor children! They had no comfort save in gentle colourless Suzette Bligh. To all her friends she had seemed a superfluous person. She used to be invited just to balance dinner-parties, or on a stray impulse of kindness. But fate had found other work for her now. The once useless superfluous woman was all the consolation these three children had; any love they got she gave them. She stood between them and desolation. She warned them what temper their mother was in, whether it were safe to approach her, and with what demeanour. More than once her love gave the meek creature courage, and she stood between them and wrath. Lamentable as the state of affairs was, Suzette had found a new joy in life. She took these children into her life and her heart, and became as a mother to them. Gradually they grew to love her. But none the less--perhaps all the more--they tormented her, bringing to her all the doubts and questions which were rife in their minds. The portentous word "divorce" had come to their ears--Harriet was not careful in her use of it. They connected it quickly with their father's now continuous absence. Whatever else it might mean--and they thought it meant something bad for their father, to be suffered at the hands of their mother--they understood it at least to mean that he would be with them no more. Suzette knew nothing at all about "access," and could only fence feebly with their questions; they ventured to put none to Harriet. They grew clear that their father had gone, and that they were to be left to their mother. One and all they declined such a conclusion. They loved Tom; they did not love Harriet. Tom had always been a refuge, sometimes a buffer. They had no doubt of what they wanted. They wanted to go to their father, and to take Suzette Bligh with them. That scheme conjured up the vision of a happy home, free from fear, where kisses would be volunteered, not exacted, and the constant dread would be no more. "But we daren't tell mamma that," said Sophy, in a tremble at the bare idea. Lucy shook her head; Vera's eyes grew wide. They certainly dared not go to Harriet with any such communication as that. They had been shrewd enough to see that they were expected to hate their father: Vera had been roughly turned out of the room merely for mentioning his name. After much consultation, carried on in a secrecy to which not even Suzette was privy, a plan was laid. They would write to their father and tell him that, whether he were sentenced to divorce or not, they wanted to come and live with him--and to bring Suzette if they might. "We won't say anything about mamma. He'll understand," Sophy observed. Vera piped out in terror: "But when mamma finds out?" "We shall be gone, don't you see?" cried Lucy. "We shall ask papa to meet us somewhere, and he'll take us with him, and then just write and tell mamma." "He can say we're sorry when he writes to tell mamma."