She put her arms round him and kissed him. There was a trembling in his tight return embrace that sent a pang through her; for it suggested somehow his deep impelling thought--fear--of the eternal separation--the everlasting farewell, not far away from him and her at the most. “Father--dear,” she murmured. “Don’t harass yourself, child--about him,” he whispered. “Let me help you try to forget.” She drew away gently and looked at him, in her eyes a will which he now admitted--proudly--to be more unswerving than his own. Said she: “_You_ didn’t teach me to forget--or to give up, either.” He sighed. “I’ll wait and take you to the ferry.” And she went into her bedroom. She had been dressing perhaps ten minutes when he rapped excitedly on her door. “What is it?” inquired she. “He’s come!” cried her father. The door swung partly open and her face appeared at the edge. “Roger? Downstairs?” “Yes--I answered the telephone from the office.” “I can’t receive him up here. It’s against the rules. Yet I want-- No--say I’ll be down to the parlor immediately.” “But I’m here,” suggested her father. “He could come up.” “He mustn’t see you.” “I could wait in there--couldn’t I?” “Yes--the door is thick,” reflected Beatrice aloud. “Yes--say he is to come up. Val--Miss Clermont has gone out.... No--I’ll see him in the parlor.” And Beatrice closed the door. It was not many minutes before she opened it again--to appear bewitchingly dressed in a new spring toilet--and the styles that year were exactly suited to her figure. She was radiant, and her father’s depressed countenance did not lessen her overflowing delight. “You can’t deny that he loves me--can you?” cried she. “No,” replied Richmond. “The fact is, I saw he did yesterday.” “Why didn’t you tell me?” demanded she. “You guessed it. What was the use?” evaded he. “Guess?” The girl laughed. “You call that guessing because you’re merely a man. It was certainty--proof--plain as if he had said so. But then, I’ve known it for weeks. Now, keep well back in the elevator, dear, for he mustn’t see you as I get out.” When the elevator was slowing for the parlor floor Richmond caught his daughter’s hand and pressed it convulsively. “Good luck!” he said in an undertone. “If you don’t win to-day we’ll follow him to France.” “To the ends of the earth,” laughed she, kissing his hand and gayly pushing him back to a rear corner of the car. The door closed behind her and the car resumed its descent; of all the thoughts boiling in Richmond’s excited brain not one was related to the strangeness of his own conduct or to the amazing transformation in a cold, tyrannical nature. In fact, the transformation was apparent rather than real. The chase had ever dominated him--the passion for the chase. And it was dominating him now. * * * * *