Here was a father whom Rupert could understand, and for the first time he regretted not having known him; but to John it was foolishness for a man to set his hand to work which was not good enough to stand. He must content himself with a humbler job. "He liked only the best," Mildred Caniper said, doing her duty by him, and the next moment she caught the full shaft of Miriam's unwary glance which was bright with the conviction that her father's desertion needed no more explanation. Mildred Caniper's mind registered the personal affront, and swept on to its implication as rain sweeps up a valley. The result was darkness, and as she sat straight and motionless in her chair, she seemed to herself to struggle, for her soul sighted despair. Long ago, she had taken life into her hands and used it roughly, and life was taking its slow revenge. In the shuttered room by the sea, the dead man, deaf to the words with which she had hurried to him, and here, in this house, the eyes of Miriam announced her failure, yet to that cold clay and to this living flesh she had been, and was, a power. She dropped her hands limply. She was tired of this fictitious power; she was almost ready to pretend no longer; and with that thought she found herself being observed by Helen with a tenderness she was not willing to endure. She spoke abruptly, resigning the pious task of sweetening Philip Caniper's memory. "Your father has left you each nearly a hundred pounds a year"--she glanced at Miriam--"to be handed over when you have reached the age of twenty-one." There was a feeling that some one ought to thank him, but no one spoke, and his children left the room with an unaccountable sense of guilt. In the safety of the schoolroom Miriam's voice rose bitterly: "Oh, why aren't we an ordinary family? Why can't we cry for a father who leaves us nearly a hundred pounds?" "Try to," Rupert advised. He was smiling queerly to himself. "Helen, isn't it horrid?" "No: I don't like crying." "John, you look as though you're going to refuse the money. I will if you do. John--" "Don't be a little fool," he said. "Refuse it! I'm holding on to it with both hands." She drooped forlornly, but no one seemed to notice her. Daniel was absorbed in the Greek grammar, and the others were thinking their own thoughts. "I'll go on to the moor," she told herself, and she slipped through the window in search of what adventure she could find. Outside the garden she paused and nodded towards the house. "I don't care," she said. "It's all their fault. And Helen--oh, I could kill Helen!" Wickedly she tried to mimic Helen's face.