“Unity, I don't think it right for you to remain in ignorance of something that has happened. I don't see how it can really affect you, but it 's better that you should learn it from me than from anybody else. Do you remember--” he paused--“that woman?” It was the first reference he had ever made to her. Unity drew a quick, sharp breath. “Yes, guardian.” “She was let out of prison this morning.” She kept her eyes full on him, and for a while neither spoke. “I don't care,” she said at last. “I thought it might cause you some anxiety.” “What have I to be afraid of when I've got you?” she asked simply. John twisted round in his chair and reached out his hand--a rare demonstration of affection--and took hers. “It's to assure you, my dear, that you've nothing to fear that I 've told you.” “She can't hurt _me_,” said Unity. “By heaven, she sha'n't!” he cried, unconsciously wrenching her arm so that he caused her considerable pain, which she bore without the flicker of an eyelid. “You 're a fine, brave girl, Unity, and I'm proud of you. And you 're a good girl, too. I hope you 're happy here; are you?” “Happy?” Her voice quavered on the word. Her mouth twitched, and the tears started from her eyes. He smiled on her, one of his rare smiles, known to few besides Stellamaris, which lit up his heavy features, and revealed a guardian far different from the inaccessible Olympian. “Yes, my dear, I hope so. I want you to be happy all your life long.” She uttered a little sobbing laugh and fell crouching to his feet, still clinging to his hand, which she rubbed against her cheek. How could she tell him otherwise? “I think you are,” said John. “I 've just remembered I put the groundsel--” began Miss Lindon, coming into the room. Then she stopped, petrified at the unusual spectacle. John laughed rather foolishly, and Unity, flushing scarlet, rushed out. “I was only asking her whether we were treating her nicely,” said John, rising and stretching his loose limbs. “What a question to ask the child!” “Well, she answered it like that, you see,” said John. “But what a way to answer a simple question! She forgets sometimes that she is a young lady of eighteen, an age when manners ought to be formed. But manners,” she continued, hunting about the room, “are not what they were when I was young. I declare, I sometimes see young women in the streets with woollen caps and hockey-sticks--” John took a salad-bowl from the mantelpiece. “Is that Dickie's groundsel?” “Oh, how clever of you! Where did you find it? Dickie has been so angry. He's just like a man when his dinner's late. I don't mean you. You 're a perfect saint, dear.” “Which reminds me,” said John, with a laugh, “that I've mislaid my halo and I must go and find it.”