"Father, dear father," she cried amidst her sobs, as she hid her face on his shoulder. "You know that you are more to me than any one else in the world. Let me help you--let me try, do let me try." And at the sound of the words Gore became again conscious of the immeasurable, dark gulf there was between what one human being had been able to do for him and what any other in the world could try to do. And his own sorrow rose darkly before him and swept away everything else--even the sorrow of his child. It was almost bitterly that he said, as if the words were wrung from him involuntarily-- "Nobody can help me now." "Oh, father!" Rachel cried again miserably. "Let me try." "Darling, I know," he said, recollecting himself at the sight of her distress, "and you know what my little girl is to me; but there are some things that even a daughter cannot do. And," he went on, "it would really be a comfort to me, I think, if"--he was going to say, "if you were married," but he altered it as he saw a swift change pass over Rachel's face--"if I knew you were happy; if you had a home of your own and were provided for." "Do you think that would be a comfort to you?" asked Rachel, trying to speak in an almost indifferent tone. "That you would be glad if I were to go away from you to a home of my own?" "Yes," he said, "I think it would." And as he spoke he felt that the burden of giving Rachel companionship and trying to help her to bear her grief would be removed from him. "Besides," he went on, with an attempt at a smile, "it is not as if you would go far away from me altogether; you will only be a few streets off, after all. I could come to you whenever I wanted, and even--who knows?--I might sometimes ask you for your hospitality." "If I thought _that_----" Rachel said, and caught herself up. "You know," her father said more seriously, "we have been discussing this from one point of view only, from mine; but you are the person most concerned, and I am taking for granted that, from your point of view, it would be the best thing to do--that you would be happy." "If I only thought," Rachel said, her face answering his last question, if her words did not, "that you would come to me--that you would be with me altogether----" "I have no doubt that you would find that I came to you very often," said Sir William, with again a desolate sense of having no definite reason for being anywhere. There was a pause before he said, "Then I'll tell him to come and see me, and perhaps he can see you afterwards." "Oh," said Rachel, shrinking, "it is not possible yet." "Well," said Sir William, "I will tell him so. We will explain to him that, since he is willing to wait, for the moment he must wait." CHAPTER VIII