"Yes," he said, "I know. But we shall have to go away from the old place, Judy, for it can't never be." "Oh, father!" "No, my dear, it won't do. It's all been a muddle, and I ought to have known better, instead of being a proud old fool, pleased as could be to see my lassie growing into a lady. There, I may as well tell you the truth, lass, at once." "The truth, father?" she said sharply. "Yes, my dear, though it goes again me to hurt your poor little soft heart." "What do you mean, father?" she cried, startled now by the keeper's looks. "It must come, Judy; but I wish you'd found it out for yourself. Young Robert isn't the man his dead father was. He's a liar and a scoundrel, girl, and--" She sprang from him with her eyes flashing, and a look of angry indignation convulsing her features. "It's true, my girl. He never meant to marry you, only to make you his plaything because he liked your pretty face." "It isn't true," said the girl harshly; and the indignation in her breast against her father made her wonderfully like him now. "It is true, Judy, my pretty. I wouldn't lie to you, and half break your heart. You've got to face it along with me. We're sent away because the captain is going to marry." "It isn't true, father; he wouldn't marry Madge Emlin, with her cruel, deceitful heart." "No, my lass; he's chucked her over too. He's going to marry Sir John Day's gal, over at Brackley Hall--her who came here and painted your face in the sun bonnet, when you were home those few days the time I had rheumatiz." "Is this true, father?" "As true as gospel, lass." She gave him a long, searching look, as if reading his very soul, and then crept back to a low chair, sank down, and buried her face in her hands. "Hah!" he said to himself, "she takes it better than I thought for. Thank God, it wasn't too late." He stood thinking for a few minutes. "Where am I to get a cottage, Judy, my lass?" he said at last. "One of those at Lindham might do for the present, out there by your grandmother's, if there's one empty. Mother Wattley would know. I'll go and see her. Let's get out of this. Poor old place, though," he said, as he looked round. "It seems rather hard." Judith had raised her head, and sat gazing straight before her, right into the future, but she did not speak. Volume 1, Chapter XI. IN A MIST. Glynne Day was seated in her favourite place--a bright, cheerful-looking room connected with her bedchamber on the first floor at Brackley, and turned by her into a pleasant nest; for the French windows opened into a tiny conservatory over a broad bay window of the dining-room, where were displayed the choicest floral gems that Jones, the head gardener, could raise, all being duly tended by her own hands.