"Yes, and he was one of it, too, and we all, of course, always went about together, rather like a school, two and two--I suppose because of the pavement," she said, now saying in her terror anything that came into her head, "and as he was the other one of my two--the half of the couple I was the other one of, you know, father--we--we got engaged." "Do you take me for a fool?" was the Bishop's comment. Ingeborg's heart stood still. How could her father even _think_-- "Oh, father," was all she could say to that; and she hung her head in the entire hopelessness, the uselessness of trying to tell him anything. She knew she had been saying it ridiculously, tumbling out a confusion of what must sound sad nonsense, but could he not see she was panic-stricken? Could he not be patient, and help her to make her clean breast? "I'm stupid," she said, looking up at him through tears, and suddenly dropping into a kind of nakedness of speech, a speech entirely simple and entirely true, "stupid with fright." "Do you suggest I terrorize you?" inquired the incensed Bishop. "Yes," she said. This was terrible. And it was peculiarly terrible because it made the Bishop actually wish he were not a gentleman. Then, indeed, it would be an easy matter to deal with that small defying creature in the chair. When it comes to women the quickest method is, after all, to be by profession a navvy.... He shuddered, and hastily drew his thoughts back from this abyss. To what dread depths of naturalness was she not by her conduct dragging him? "Father," said Ingeborg, who had now got down to the very bottom of the very worst, a place where once one has reached it an awful sincerity takes possession of one's tongue, "do you see this? Look at them." And she held up her hands and showed him, while she herself watched them as though they were somebody else's, how they were shaking. "Isn't that being afraid? Look at them. It's fear. It's fear of you. It's you making them do that. And think of it--I'm twenty-two. A woman. Oh, I--I'm _ashamed_--" But whether it was a proper shame for what she had done or a shocking shame for her compunctions in sinning, the Bishop was not permitted that afternoon to discover; because when she had got as far as that she was interrupted by being obliged to faint. There was a moment's confusion while she tumbled out of the chair and lay, a creased, strange object, on the floor, owing to Mrs. Bullivant's having produced an exclamation; and this to the Bishop, after years of not having heard her more than murmur, was almost as disconcerting as if, flinging self-restraint to the winds, she had suddenly produced fresh offspring. He quickly, however, recovered the necessary presence of mind and the bell was rung for Richards; who, when she came, knelt down and undid Ingeborg's travel-worn blouse, and something on a long chain fell out jingling. It was her father's cross and Herr Dremmel's ring metallically hitting each other.