ou can't see your father?"

"No."

"But, do. It's best."

"I can't."

"Why not?"

"Not--" she hesitated, and clasped her hands in her lap.

"Yes, yes; I know," said he; "but still! You could surely see him. You
rouse suspicions that need not exist. Try another glass, my dear."

"No more."

"Well; as I was saying, you force him to think--and there is no necessity
for it. He maybe as hard on this point as you say; but now and then a
little innocent deception maybe practised. We only require to gain time.
You place me in a very hard position. I have a father too. He has his own
idea of things. He's a proud man, as I've told you; tremendously
ambitious, and he wants to push me, not only at the bar, but in the money
market matrimonial. All these notions I have to contend against. Things
can't be done at once. If I give him a shock--well, we'll drop any
consideration of the consequences. Write to your sister to tell her to
bring your father. If they make particular inquiries--very unlikely I
think--but, if they do, put them at their ease."

She sighed.

"Why was my poor darling so upset, when I came in?" said he.

There was a difficulty in her speaking. He waited with much patient
twiddling of bread crumbs; and at last she said:

"My sister called twice at my--our old lodgings. The second time, she
burst into tears. The girl told me so."

"But women cry so often, and for almost anything, Dahlia."

"Rhoda cries with her hands closed hard, and her eyelids too."

"Well, that maybe her way."

"I have only seen her cry once, and that was when mother was dying, and
asked her to fetch a rose from the garden. I met her on the stairs. She
was like wood. She hates crying. She loves me so."

The sympathetic tears rolled down Dahlia's cheeks.

"So, you quite refuse to see your father?" he asked.

"Not yet!"

"Not yet," he repeated.

At the touch of scorn in his voice, she exclaimed:

"Oh, Edward! not yet, I cannot. I know I am weak. I can't meet him now.
If my Rhoda had come alone, as I hoped--! but he is with her. Don't blame
me, Edward. I can't explain. I only know that I really have not the power
to see him."

Edward nodded. "The sentiment some women put into things is
inexplicable," he said. "Your sister and father will return home. They
will have formed their ideas. You know how unjust they will be. Since,
however, the taste is for being a victim--eh?"

London lodging-house rooms in Winter when the bl