Leaving him a moment, Louie went to her father’s room. Both he and her mother were asleep; and, assured of that, she returned to Herbert and told him very briefly what was in her mind. She did not say that anything in his conduct had influenced her. She spoke at first only of her own changed position, and her wish to shield him from what he would regret. “They call my father bad names,” she said, “and perhaps he deserves them; but he is my father, and I shall stand by him. With you it is different, and you must not be bound to the daughter of a speculator—a thief—a gambler—and they say my father is all three, and they have threatened to tar and feather him if he appeared in the street, and have talked of arrest and State’s prison. I cannot expect you to bear that disgrace, together with your father’s anger, when he knows, as he must know some time. I told you you were free when the crash first came, and you would not accept your freedom, but you must now, I am in earnest. And then—” She hesitated, breathing hard before she continued, “I have promised to pay his debts, and if I live I shall keep my word.” “How?” Herbert asked. “By my voice,” she answered. “You remember what Miss Percy said of it. She may be right—she may be wrong. I believe she was right. At all events I shall try. She has not forgotten me. I had a letter from her to-day after you left me. God moved her to write, I am sure, when my need was greatest, for she has never written before since she went abroad last fall. She is in Paris, and still has Marchesi in mind for me, and offered to bear the expense of my lessons if father would send me there. I think, if we sell everything, the creditors will not care if I keep enough for us to live on, and take me to Paris, when father and mother get well.” She paused and Herbert said, “You mean the stage, of course; opera, perhaps?”