Presently: "Perhaps the Boynes have motored down. Or one of them." I said I had no reason to think so. All the same, I couldn't help welcoming the suggestion. For the idea that the Boynes, "or one of them," might be there, seemed, oddly enough, to excuse Bettina in my mother's eyes. And she was moved to make me understand why I had been reproached. We had to be far more careful than most girls. I heard about the heavy responsibility of bringing up "girls without a father." I wondered in what way our father's being here would have altered the events of this particular evening. And since he had been quoted to justify anxiety, I made bold to go to him for cheer. At times of stress before, I had invoked my father. Not often, and all-cautiously. And never yet in vain. That night I wondered aloud what were the kind of things our father would have done. "His mere being here would make all the difference." His mere name certainly did much. Once again I had cause to bless him for taking the chill out of the domestic atmosphere. She talked more about him and, by implication, more about herself that night than ever before or after. She told me of the mistakes he had saved her from. The things he had warned her against. Though he was brave as a lion, she would have me believe that he was afraid of trusting people. He had said to her after a certain occurrence---- "What occurrence?" I interrupted. "No need to go into that," she said hurriedly. The point lay in his comment: "The safe course is not to trust anyone." "That is very uncomfortable," I said. It was better, she answered, to be less comfortable and safe, than to be more comfortable and---- "And what?" She had stopped suddenly, and felt for her watch on the night table. "Ten minutes past. They will surely see that she starts for home by ten o'clock." We sat for five minutes without speaking. I thinking of my father. Then we heard the maids making the nightly round, shutting and locking up the house. "Look out of the window," my mother said. I could see nothing. The night was dark and still. "She can't be long now," my mother said. "But go and tell them they may bolt the front door. We are sure to hear her coming up the walk." She called me back. "Tell them not to forget to put the chain on the door." Oh, the times we had been told that! Downstairs I found the house shut up and barred as for a siege. The maids had done their work and vanished. I was the only creature stirring. Upstairs the same. My mother seemed not to hear me come back into the room. She was lying with the candle-light on her face, and on her face the old listening fear. What made her look like that? If there had been anything, if there had been even that old mournful sound of the wind, I could have minded less. But the night was very quiet. The house was hushed as death. And still she listened.