He took one of her hands as it rested on his shoulder, she standing partly behind him, and raised it to his lips, but he did not turn to her; he could not. "It is all right--all right," he said; "it doesn't make any difference. Let us think of Frank and what we have got to do. Let us stand together, Marion; that is best." But her tears were dropping on his shoulder, as her forehead rested on her hand. He knew now that, whatever Frank's wife was, she would not have an absolute enemy here; for when Marion cried her heart was soft. She was clay in the hands of the potter whom we call Mercy--more often a stranger to the hearts of women than of men. At the other side of the room also the father and mother, tearless now, watched these two; and the mother saw her duty better and with less rebelliousness. She had felt it from the first, but she could not bring her mind to do it. They held each other's hands in silence. Presently General Armour said: "Richard, your mother and I will go to Liverpool to meet Frank's wife." Marion shuddered a little, and her hands closed on Richard's shoulder, but she said nothing. CHAPTER III OUT OF THE NORTH It was a beautiful day--which was so much in favour of Mrs. Frank Armour in relation to her husband's people. General Armour and his wife had come down from London by the latest train possible, that their suspense at Liverpool might be short. They said little to each other, but when they did speak it was of things very different from the skeleton which they expected to put into the family cupboard presently. Each was trying to spare the other. It was very touching. They naturally looked upon the matter in its most unpromising light, because an Indian was an Indian, and this unknown savage from Fort Charles was in violent contrast to such desirable persons as Lady Agnes Martling. Not that the Armours were zealous for mere money and title, but the thing itself was altogether a propos, as Mrs. Armour had more naively than correctly put it. The general, whose knowledge of character and the circumstances of life was considerable, had worked out the thing with much accuracy. He had declared to Richard, in their quiet talk upon the subject, that Frank must have been anything but sober when he did it. He had previously called it a policy of retaliation; so that now he was very near the truth. When they arrived at the dock at Liverpool, the Aphrodite was just making into the harbour. "Egad," said General Armour to himself, "Sebastopol was easier than this; for fighting I know, and being peppered I know, by Jews, Greeks, infidels, and heretics; but to take a savage to my arms and do for her what her godfathers and godmothers never did, is worse than the devil's dance at Delhi."