Produced by Andrew Sly, Al Haines and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net The Daughter Pays By Mrs. Baillie Reynolds A. L. BURT COMPANY Publishers New York Published by Arrangements with George H. Doran Company Copyright, 1915, 1916, By Mrs. Baillie Reynolds TO ALICE PERRIN PRE-EMINENT IN SYMPATHY FOR THE WORK OF HER SISTER WRITER WITH AFFECTIONATE ADMIRATION _Qui que tu sois, voici ton maître! Il l'est, le fut, ou le doit être._ Inscription upon a statue of Love, in the Louvre. Freely rendered-- _Whoe'er thou art, thy lord is he. He is, or was, or he must be._ CONTENTS CHAPTER I The Man in the Gallery II Father and Son III Virginia at Home IV The Two Virginias V The Old Love VI Gaunt's Terms VII Virginia Decides VIII Into the Unknown IX In the Trap X Andromeda XI A First Experience XII The Beginning of Defeat XIII The Treatment Breaks Down XIV Instantaneous Conversion XV No Place of Repentance XVI Renouncement XVII What Comes Next? XVIII The Final Test XIX Absence XX A Case for Interposition? XXI The Last Ride Together XXII The Roman Villa XXIII Temptation XXIV Escape XXV The Return XXVI The Difficult Path XXVII Lunch at Perley Hatch XXVIII The Way Back XXIX The Mastery XXX The Escape THE DAUGHTER PAYS CHAPTER I THE MAN IN THE GALLERY "_Yes, I have felt like some deserted world That God hath done with, and had cast aside Untilled, no use, no pleasure, not desired ... Could such a world have hope that, some blest day, God would remember her, and fashion her Anew?_"--Jean Ingelow. The full sunshine of late June, tempered by the medium of London atmosphere, illumined the long extent of Gallery Number Sixteen at Hertford House. It was a pay-day, and there were, in consequence, but few visitors. The expanse of polished floor glimmered with a suggestion of coolness, a hint of ice; and the summer light touched with brilliance the rich colour on the walls, the mellow harmonies of the bits of old furniture ranged below. The space and solitude, the silence and sunlight, emphasised and threw into strong relief the figures of two girls, deep in contemplation before the portrait of Isabella, wife of Paul de Vos. Though these were modern, even ultra-modern, Nattier and Boucher, great interpreters of an artificial age, might have hailed them as kindred spirits. They seemed eloquent of all that luxury could produce in the way of exotic perfection. But for the absence of rouge and powder, they were as far removed from the dingy, the commonplace, or the underbred, as any pre-Revolution marquise, smiling from the windows of her château upon a world dark with misery, convulsed with pain, and all unconscious of its very existence.