that might come of accustoming
herself to the fact. And when she thought of her father
she hoped that it might be soon.

There came a day when Lawrence Cardiff gave, his daughter
the happiness of being almost his other self again. He
had come downstairs with a headache and a touch of fever,
and all day long he let her take care of him submissively,
with the old pleasant gratitude that seemed to re-establish
their comradeship. She had a joyful secret wonder at the
change, it was so sadden and so complete; but their
sympathetic relation reasserted itself naturally and at
once, and she would not let herself question it. In the
evening he sent her to her room for a book of his, and
when she brought it to him where he lay upon the lounge
in the library he detained her a moment.

"You mustn't attempt to read without a lamp now, daddy,"
she said, touching his forehead lightly with her lips.
"You will damage your poor old eyes."

"Don't be impertinent about my poor old eyes, miss," he
returned, smiling. "Janet, there is something I think
you ought to know."

"Yes, daddy." The girl felt herself turning rigid.

"I want you to make friends with Elfrida again. I have
every reason to believe--at all events some reason to
believe--that she will become my wife." Her knowing
already made it simpler to say.

"Has--has she promised, daddy?"

"Not exactly. But I think she will, Janet." His tone was
very confident. "And of course you must forgive each
other any little heart-burnings there may have been
between you."

Any little heart-burnings! Janet had a quivering moment
of indecision. "Oh, daddy! she won't! she won't!" she
cried tumultuously, and hurried out of the room. Cardiff
lay still, smiling pityingly. What odd ideas women managed
to get into their heads about one another! Janet thought
Elfrida would refuse her overtures if she made them.
How little she knew Elfrida--his just, candid, generous
Elfrida!

Janet flung herself upon her bed and faced the situation,
dry-eyed, with burning cheeks. She could always face a
situation when it admitted the possibility of anything
being done, when there was a chance for resolution and
action. Practical difficulties nerved her; it was only
before the blankness of a problem of pure abstractness
that she quailed--such a problem as the complication of
her relation to John Kendal and to Elfrida Bell. She had
shrunk from that for months, had put it away habitually
in the furthest