“I shall be within call if I am required,” he said; and Honor, understanding his meaning, trembled from head to foot. She longed yet dreaded to ask her husband what had passed between him and her father. Her father! The bond was such a sacred one that she could not but cling in thought, not only with love but reverence, to the being who bore that relation towards her. Instinctively, too, but grievously, did she blame herself for ingratitude towards John; for Honor turned with something like repulsion from the good and trusted friend on whose arm she leant, and who was saying, as they came uppermost, unstudied words of comfort, while his own heart was full to overflowing of anxiety and sorrow. “It’s a bad business, my dear,” he said; “and I don’t see that you can do any good here. It would be better, it seems to me, if you and mother were to go in the trap to Gawthorpe. It would be more comfortable for you to be out of this crowd; and when anything is known, and--settled, I could come after, and let you know.” Honor was silent. She was thinking that it would be hard to return home in such suspense about her father, thinking that it was not for John, who had been the cause of all her sorrow, to send her away at such a time as this. “Well, what are you fretting about, Honey?” John asked, stopping short and looking earnestly into her pale face. “Is there anything you wish--anything that I can do?” “I was feeling,” Honor said in a tone so low that he could hardly catch the words, “that I should like--if you don’t--object--to remain where my father is; to remain at least till we know what the doctor says about his wound.” “As you like, my dear,” John answered quietly; but there was bitterness in his heart as the idea crossed his mind that Honor at that moment was thinking more of her newly-found parent than of him; “as you like: we will find mother; my head’s growing stupid, I think, with all this bother; and, Honor”--after a pause, and drawing a long breath--“I think it’s best, if anything should happen, though I begin to think it ain’t likely, to--to your father--I think it’s best, my dear, to tell you that I didn’t strike him unprovoked. The Colonel--it’s an ugly story, and one that I hardly know how to tell you--boasted, he did, and talked big; and--but I suppose it ain’t altogether right to go on this way to you about him: this I must say, though, that I couldn’t stand the heartless, horrible things he said about--about a poor unhappy girl, who--Honor!” stopping short in his walk, and grasping both her hands with a force that was almost painful--“Honor, can’t you understand? I wouldn’t hurt your feelings, pet--no, not for the world--but--” “But you do, John,” sobbed Honor, who was growing hysterical, and whose small unpractised head was becoming bewildered by the force of contending emotions. “You do--you frighten me--I--”