s stroke without seeming to listen, his brow
puckered a little, his eyes bent on the boat's wake abstractedly as though
he communed with an inward vision.

At the front door of Hall Susannah met her, white and tearful.

"I heard that he'd sent for you." Susannah sank her voice almost to a
whisper. "He's in the counting-house. You be'n't afeard?"

"Why should I be afraid?"

"I don't know. He's that strange. For months now he've a-been strange;
but for two days he've a-sat there, wi'out food or drink, and the door
locked most of the time. Not for worlds would I step into that room
alone."

"For two days?"

"Ever since he opened the poor child's letter; for a letter there was,
though the Lord knows what was in it. You're sure you be'n't afeard?"

Hester stepped past her and through the great parlour, and tapped gently
on the counting-house door. Her knock was answered by the sound of a key
turning in the lock, and Rosewarne opened to her.

At the moment she could not see his face, for a lamp on the writing-table
behind silhouetted him in black shadow. Her eyes wandered over the room's
disarray, and all her senses quailed together in its exhausted atmosphere.

He closed the door, but did not lock it again, motioned her to a chair,
and dropped heavily into his accustomed seat by the writing-table,
where for a while his fingers played nervously with the scattered papers.
Now by the lamplight she noted the extreme greyness of his face and the
hard brilliance of his eyes, usually so dull and fish-like.

"I am much obliged to you for coming," he began in a level, almost
business-like tone, but without looking up. "There are some questions I
want to ask. You have heard the news, of course?"

"Everyone has heard. I am sorry--so sorry! It is terrible."

"Thank you," said he, with a slight inclination of the head, as though
acknowledging some remark of small and ordinary politeness. "Perhaps you
would like to see this?" He picked up a crumpled sheet of notepaper,
smoothed out the creases, and handed it to her. Taking it, she read this,
written in a childish, ill-formed hand--

"Dear Father,--When this reaches you I shall be at sea. I hope you
won't mind very much, as it runs in the family, and some of those
that done it have turned out best. I don't get any good staying at
home. I love you and you love me, but nobody else does, and nobody
understands. I thought Miss Marvin u