“Father is in,” she said; “he waited in on purpose to see you. Yes; he knows.” “You told him? Well?” “He said very little, but enough. Oh, Frank, it is very dreadful. He is my father. But all I said to you holds. He, you; that is what hurts so. It was awful telling him, too. But I had to.” “My darling, why?” he asked. “You should have left it to me.” Her eye brightened. “Ah, that was one of the reasons why I didn’t,” she said. “Oh, Helen! But you look tired, knocked up.” “That doesn’t much matter,” she said. “Go to see him now, dear. You will find me on the lawn when you have finished. And, remember, it all holds. It was never shaken, not for a moment, even last night. And he came to say good-night to me afterwards; poor, dear father! I have always envied him for his strength till now; but now it is just that which will make him suffer so horribly.” Frank felt in his coat pocket, and took a note out of it. “From Lady Sunningdale,” he said. “She is delighted, and is telling everybody how she managed and contrived it all from the beginning.” Helen took the note. “Go now, Frank,” she said. “I can think of nothing till this is over.” She strolled out on to the lawn again, and sat down in the warm shade of the box-hedge to read Lady Sunningdale’s ecstatic and desultory raptures. The scene the evening before, followed by a very restless night, full of half-conscious sleep and wide-eyed awakenings, had so tired her that weariness had brought a sort of healing of its own, dulling the keenest edge of her capacity for suffering. Breakfast had been a meal of ghastly silence, broken only by noises of knives and forks, loud in the stillness. Her father had only addressed her directly once, and that to say that he wished to see Lord Yorkshire when he arrived. Breakfast over, she had written to Martin to tell him all that had happened; then Frank had come.