She went forward, keenly aware of Arthur standing motionless before the fireplace, but not glancing at him as she passed. She reached Mr. Dermot, and took the hand he extended. It was icy-cold and trembling, and it seemed to her that there was something almost appealing in the way it clung to hers. “I am so sorry you have been ill,” she said. “Yes, we are a sad household—a sad household,” he made answer. “I am told the little one is very ill—the little blind girl who lives with us. Can you tell me what is the matter with her? Some childish ailment, I suppose?” As it were against her will, Frances glanced at Arthur. His eyes looked straight back at her from under frowning brows. He spoke briefly, coldly. “I think you have been informed before, sir, that the child would not live to grow up. Perhaps under the circumstances it is hardly to be desired that she should.” “Under what circumstances?” said Mr. Dermot, and his voice was as cold as his son’s, but with an edge of satire that was to Frances even more unbearable than the studied indifference of the younger man’s utterance. “Since when, may I ask, have you been a qualified judge as to the relative values of life and death?” Arthur made a very slight movement that might have denoted either protest or exasperation. “I referred to her infirmity,” he said. Mr. Dermot laughed, a soft, bitter laugh, and Frances shivered. She felt the tension between the two men to be so acute as to be near the snapping point, and wondered desperately what mistaken impulse had brought her thither and how she might escape. But in a moment the old man addressed her again, and there came to her a curious conviction that in some fashion she was needed. “Will you not sit down, Miss Thorold,” he said, “and take tea with me? I do not have my meals with my family as, on account of the weakness of my heart, quiet is essential to me. You were just going”; he turned very pointedly to his son; “will you be good enough to ask Elsie to bring tea for Miss Thorold as well as for myself?” He spoke with frigid politeness as if addressing a menial, but there was a quaver in his voice that betrayed him. Frances realized very clearly in that instant which of the two men had the upper hand, and the realization was as a heavy weight laid upon her. She shook it off with conscious effort, telling herself that it mattered nothing to her at least since she had gained her freedom. Arthur made no move of any sort in response to his father’s request. He stood as before, grim as a gaoler, looking straight across at her. Very steadily, with a certain stateliness that was hers upon occasion, she took the chair the old man had indicated. “That is very kind of you,” she said to him. “I should like it very much.”