“Kiss me, you wet, cold, melancholy-looking papa,” she said, planting herself between Lionel Hillary and the door of his sanctum. The merchant seemed in no very affectionate humour to-night. He put his daughter aside without looking at her. His face was fixed and stern in expression, and its gloomy rigidity was in no way relaxed as he spoke to Maude. “Why are you up so late?” he said. “I thought you would have gone to bed an hour ago. I don’t want to be worried to-night, Maude. I’ve some papers down here that want looking into, and I’ve brought other papers with me. I may have to sit up half the night, perhaps; and, remember, I am not to be disturbed.” “But you will be ill, papa, if you work so hard.” “I shall not be ill, and I know what is best for myself. I cannot and must not be annoyed to-night, Maude.” He went into his room, where the servant had already made an illumination that would have been enough for a chapel or a factory, by means of five flaring gas-burners; but Maude followed him, and was not to be put off even by the harsh words that sounded so strangely in her ears. “Papa,” she remonstrated piteously, “I am sure that you are ill, or that something has happened.” Mr. Hillary laid his hand upon his daughter’s shoulder, and put her out of the room,--very gently, but with a certain determination which was quite a new thing in his treatment of this idolized and exacting Maude. “I tell you, once more, that I am going to be--very busy, and must not--be disturbed.” He seemed tired, for the words came slowly, as if the mere utterance of them were a painful exertion. “Good night, my dear; go to bed, and sleep peacefully. God bless you, and take you into his keeping!” His manner changed all in a moment as he said this, and he caught her suddenly to his breast and kissed her passionately, as he had done on that other day when they had talked of Francis Tredethlyn. But in the next moment Maude found herself standing outside the closed door of her father’s retreat, amazed and unhappy. That sudden little gush of affection had been as perplexing to her as Mr. Hillary’s unusual sternness of manner. It was all alike strange; and vague fears agitated her as she went slowly up-stairs to the big barren drawing-room, which looked very little more home-like than a first-class waiting-room at a railway station.