She remained with him an hour before he moved. His companion in the mill did not come near them, knowing, as the poor do know on such occasions, there was something going on which would lead them to prefer that he should be absent. The words that were said between them were not very many; but at the end of the hour Fanny returned to the house. "Carry," she said, "father is coming in." "If he looks at me, it will kill me," said Carry. Mrs. Brattle was so lost in her hopes and fears that she knew not what to do, or how to bestow herself. A minute had hardly passed when the miller's step was heard, and Carry knew that she was in the presence of her father. She had been sitting, but now she rose, and went to him and knelt at his feet. "Father," she said, "if I may bide with you,--if I may bide with you--." But her voice was lost in sobbing, and she could make no promise as to her future conduct. [Illustration: "If I may bide with you,--if I may bide with you."] "She may stay with us," the father said, turning to his eldest daughter; "but I shall never be able to show my face again about the parish." He had uttered no words of forgiveness to his daughter, nor had he bestowed upon her any kiss. Fanny had raised her when she was on the ground at his feet, and had made her seat herself apart. "In all the whole warld," he said, looking round upon his wife and his elder child, raising his hand as he uttered the words, and speaking with an emphasis that was terrible to the hearers, "there is no thing so vile as a harlot." All the dreaded fierceness of his manner had then come back to him, and neither of them had dared to answer him. After that he at once went back to the mill, and to Fanny who followed him he vouchsafed to repeat the permission that his daughter should be allowed to remain beneath his roof. Between twelve and one she again went to fetch him to his dinner. At first he declared that he would not come, that he was busy, and that he would eat a morsel, where he was, in the mill. But Fanny argued the matter with him. "Is it always to be so, father?" "I do not know. What matters it, so as I have strength to do a turn of work?" "It must not be that her presence should drive you from the house. Think of mother, and what she will suffer. Father, you must come." Then he allowed himself to be led into the house, and he sat in his accustomed chair, and ate his dinner in gloomy silence. But after dinner he would not smoke. "I tell 'ee, lass, I do not want the pipe to-day. Now't has got itself done. D'ye think as grist 'll grind itself without hands?"