She was about to go and speak to Gladys when she heard the hall door open. It closed. Something--some unexpressed fear or foreboding--kept her where she was. Steps were in the hall, but they were not her father's; he always moved with determined stride to his study or the stairs. These steps hesitated and faltered as though some one were there who did not know the house. At last she went into the hall and saw that it was indeed her father now going slowly upstairs. "Father!" she cried; "I'm so glad you're in. Dinner's been waiting for hours. Shall I tell them to send it up?" He did not answer nor look back. She went to the bottom of the stairs and said again: "Shall I, father?" But still he did not answer. She heard him close his door behind him. She went back into the drawing-room terribly frightened. There was something in the bowed head and slow steps that terrified her, and suddenly she was aware that she had been frightened for many weeks past, but that she had never owned to herself that it was so. She waited for a long time wondering what she should do. At last, calling her courage, she climbed the stairs, waited, and then, as though compelled by the overhanging silence of the house, knocked on his dressing-room door. "Father, what shall we do about dinner? Mother hasn't come in yet." There was no answer. "Will you have dinner now?" she asked again. A voice suddenly answered her as though he were listening on the other side of the door. "No, no. I want no dinner." She went down again, told Gladys that she would eat something, then sat in the lonely dining-room swallowing her soup and cutlet in the utmost haste. Something was terribly wrong. Her father was covering all the rest of her view--the Jubilee, her mother, even Johnny. He was in great trouble, and she must help him, but she felt desperately her youth, her inexperience, her inadequacy. She waited again, when she had finished her meal, wondering what she had better do. Oh! how stupid not to know instantly the right thing and to feel this fear when it was her own father! She went half-way upstairs, and then stood listening. No sound. Again she waited outside his door. With trembling hand she turned the handle. He faced her, staring at her. On his left temple was a big black bruise, on his forehead a cut, and on his left cheek a thin red mark that looked like a scratch. "Father, you're hurt!" "Yes, I fell down--stumbled over something, coming up from the river." He looked at her impatiently. "Well, well, what is it?" "Nothing, father--only they're still keeping some dinner--" "I don't want anything. Where is your mother?" "She hasn't come back." "Not come back? Why, where did she go to?" "I don't know. Gladys says she went out about six." He pushed past her into the passage. He went down into the hall; she followed him timidly. From the bottom of the stairs he saw the letter on the table, and he went straight to it. He tore open the envelope and read: