"Meaning nothing of the sort," she replied. "I want you to try and realise, father, if you can, that I have passed into a larger world than you or this little village community here know very much about. I have written books and been praised for them by men whose praise is worth having. There are plenty of perfectly good and well-living people who know what I have done and who are glad to be my friends. There is one who wants to marry me." Richard Vont looked at her long and steadily. Marcia was, as usual, dressed with extreme simplicity, but her clothes were always good, and economy in boots and hats was a vice which she had never practised. When she told him that she had passed into a world apart from his, he realised it. The only wonder was that she had ever been his daughter! "To marry you!" he repeated. "It's one of those of your own loose way of thinking, eh? One of those who have forgotten the laws of God and have set up for themselves some graven image in which there's nought of the truth?" "The man who wishes to marry me, father," she said warmly, "is a man of honour and position. Can't you believe me when I assure you that there is another way of looking at what you consider so terrible? I have been as faithful to my vows as you to your marriage ones. The man whom I am told you still hate has never wavered in his loyalty to me, any more than I have in my fidelity to him. Can't you believe that to some extent, at least, we have sanctified our love?" James Vont passed his hand a little wearily over his forehead. "It's blasphemous gibberish that you're talking," he declared. "If you had come back to me, Marcia, in rags and in want, maybe there is something in my heart would have gone, and I'd have taken you and we'd have found a home somewhere far away. But to see you sitting there, soft and well-spoken, speaking of your success, pleased with your life, turns that very hatred you spoke of into fury! You and your learning and your writing of books! Why, you're ignorant, woman, more ignorant than the insects about you. You don't know right from wrong." "Father," she pleaded-- "Aye, but listen," he went on. "You've children, eh?" "No," she answered softly. "No children to bear your shame, eh? And why not?" She looked for a moment into his eyes, and then away. "That may be the one weak spot," she confessed.