With a deep blush, for she was quite conscious of the necessity that existed of concealing this unwifely feeling, Honor pushed the letter across the breakfast-table to her husband. “From Mrs. Norcott,” she said, doing her best to seem occupied with her tea-making. “And she says my father is ill. O, John,” she continued, setting down the teapot, and speaking almost _malgré elle_, for she had purposed choosing her opportunity better,--“O, John, mayn’t I go to London? Mrs. Norcott asks me very kindly, you see, and--” “Yes, I see,” John said hurriedly; “and you’ll be very glad to say yes; anything for a change! So like the women!” and he jerked his head pettishly; a sign of annoyance which Honor had learned to thoroughly comprehend. “I shouldn’t ask to go,” she said, “if my father were well;” and as she spoke the sound of tears was audible in her low voice. “He never troubled himself much about you as long as he was well,” growled John. “Some people are ready enough to take anything that’s offered to them, it seems to me.” He spoke crossly perhaps, for he felt sore on this especial point. He was so well convinced that the Colonel did not really feel one particle of parental love for Honor; while in his own breast, in spite of seeming harshness and of momentary fits of anger, there was such an inexhaustible well of undying tenderness, of conjugal and yet purely unselfish devotion. Can we wonder, therefore, that he was susceptible--jealous even--when it became in the most remote degree a question between _his_ claims and those of Honor’s father on her love and duty? Can we wonder that he turned with instinctive repulsion from the idea of her exchanging, even for a day, the protection of his roof for that of Colonel Norcott? Honor remained silent after John’s last remark. Not that she felt in the slightest degree disposed thereby to abandon the hope which Mrs. Norcott’s letter had held out. She knew John far too well not to be certain that a very little coaxing, or even the shedding of a single tear, would be sufficient to gain for her all that she required. She had only to lay her little hand upon John’s stout arm, and look pleadingly with her large blue eyes into his good kindly face, and the all-important matter would be at once satisfactorily disposed of. But in the mean while, and pending a fitting opportunity for the use of her secret weapons, she kept silent even from the good words with which she intended to bring her husband over to her will.