'We shall find something for him. You need not worry about him.' George flushed. He could find nothing to say. He was ashamed and angry. He wanted to get away quickly from that place of horror, and he was relieved when the warder told them it was time to go. 'Good-bye, George,' said Fred Allerton. 'Good-bye.' He kept his eyes sullenly fixed on the ground. The look of despair in Allerton's face grew more intense. He saw that his son hated him. And it had been on him that all his light affection was placed. He had been very proud of the handsome boy. And now his son merely wanted to be rid of him. Bitter words rose to his lips, but his heart was too heavy to utter them, and they expressed themselves only in a sob. 'Forgive me for all I've done against you, Lucy.' 'Have courage, father, we will never love you less.' He forced a sad smile to his lips. She included George in what she said, but he knew that she spoke only for herself. They went. And he turned away into the darkness. * * * Lucy's tears relieved her a little. They exhausted her, and so made her agony more easy to bear. It was necessary now to think of the future. Alec MacKenzie must be there soon. She wondered why he had written, and what he could have to say that mattered. She could only think of her father, and above all of George. She dried her eyes, and with a deep sigh set herself methodically to consider the difficult problem. * * * When Alec came she rose gravely to receive him. For a moment he was overcome by her loveliness, and he gazed at her in silence. Lucy was a woman who was at her best in the tragic situations of life; her beauty was heightened by the travail of her soul, and the heaviness of her eyes gave a pathetic grandeur to her wan face. She advanced to meet sorrow with an unquailing glance, and Alec, who knew something of heroism, recognised the greatness of her heart. Of late he had been more than once to see that portrait of _Diana of the Uplands_, in which he, too, found the gracious healthiness of Lucy Allerton; but now she seemed like some sad queen, English to the very bones, who bore with a royal dignity an intolerable grief, and yet by the magnificence of her spirit turned into something wholly beautiful. 'You must forgive me for forcing myself upon you to-day,' he said slowly. 'But my time is very short, and I wanted to speak to you at once.' 'It is very good of you to come.' She was embarrassed, and did not know what exactly to say. 'I am always very glad to see you.' He looked at her steadily, as though he were turning over in his mind her commonplace words. She smiled. 'I wanted to thank you for your great kindness to me during these two or three weeks. You've been very good to me, and you've helped me to bear all that--I've had to bear.'