Lucy, sitting in her room, heard the murmur of their voices through her open windows. Her high spirits of the hour before were gone, and she sat dejected, her face mournful, and her head hanging like a flower broken on its stem. Presently she slipped down to the conservatory, took the pot of cactus Conrad had given her, ran across the back-yard, and threw it over the fence. Then she joined her father and Louise, seating herself on the arm of his chair and throwing her arm around his neck as she asked with loving concern about his welfare, told him he had not been looking well of late, and that he was working too hard and ought to have a rest. But that evening, after dinner, she rushed across the yard and out of the gate, and gathered up the cactus pot in her arms as if it were some small animal she had hurt. She returned it to its place in the conservatory, pressing her hands around it until its spines brought little drops of blood. "I can't help it!" she exclaimed in a vehement whisper. "I have to like him, and I shan't try any more not to! He wouldn't hurt daddy, I know he wouldn't--because--because he wouldn't--and because--he loves me!" A tiny smile curved her lips as she touched the plant caressingly and presently her whisper went on: "If I could only tell daddy that he needn't be afraid or worried! Oh, I wish I could! But he mustn't guess I know." Her lips ceased moving and she stared unseeingly at the cactus, as her thought slowly took shape: "It's worrying daddy awfully, and I mustn't let it go on any longer. I'll tell Mr. Conrad who Delafield is and he'll stop right then--I know he will. He'll despise us afterward--oh, he won't love me after that!--but--poor daddy! he won't be worried any more." Bancroft and Miss Dent were alike convinced that his pursuer would be ruthless in the fulfilment of revenge. Arguing from their knowledge of men, their experience of the world, and their observation of his character, each had come to the fixed conclusion that no softening of heart or staying of hand could be expected from him when he knew the truth. Lucy, having neither knowledge of men nor experience of the world to guide her, had not reasoned about the matter at all. She had jumped at once to her conclusion, as soon as she knew her father's identity, that he had nothing to fear from Curtis. Her decision was partly due to her own temperament, which she instinctively felt to be somewhat akin to Conrad's, and partly to her knowledge of a side of his character of which Louise knew little and her father still less. It was further strengthened by her intuition that he loved her--something the young man himself had not yet realized. Other than this belief in his love she could have offered no reason for her assurance that he would give over his purpose as soon as he learned to whose door his quest was leading him. But neither her father nor Louise, had it been possible for them to argue with her, could have shaken her conviction.