"Not for worlds," said the General. "I'll go myself. She mustn't be
disturbed, poor child, if she has a headache."

He went upstairs softly, pursing out his lips as he went along in
troubled thought. He opened the door of his daughter's room, and spoke
her name in a whisper. There was not a sound.

"Fast asleep," he said, with a sigh, as he went to his dressing-room to
dress for dinner. That was something he would not have omitted for any
possible calamity that could befall him.

He ate his dinner in lonely state. Bridget had done her best by way of
expressing her sympathy, but he ate without his usual enjoyment.

"Sure," said Pat afterwards, "he didn't know but what it was sawdust he
was atin' instead of that beautiful volly-vong of yours. He could barely
touch the mutton, and a beautiful little joint it was. Sure, there's a
sad change come over the house, anyway."

The General gave orders that Miss Nelly was not to be disturbed again
that night. After dinner he retired to his den and made a pretence of
reading the papers, but his heart wasn't in it. He missed even a speech
of Robin's which would have enraged him in happier times. He sat turning
over the sheets and sighing to himself now and again; only when Pat came
in with a pretence of replenishing the fire--it was Pat's way of showing
his silent sympathy--was the General absorbed in his newspaper. Not that
it imposed on Pat, who mentioned afterwards to Bridget that he didn't
believe the master knew a word of what he was looking at.

About half-past nine the General relinquished that pretence of reading.
He felt the house to be nearly as sad as though someone were lying dead
in it, and he could support it no longer. He must find out what was the
matter with the child, or at least show her how her old father's heart
bled for her. He got up quietly from his big easy-chair, from which he
had been used to survey his Nelly's face at the other side of the
fireplace for many a happy year. To be sure, it had not been the same
since the Dowager had come, and Nelly had gone gadding of evenings.
Still, she had always come in to kiss him before she went off, looking
radiant and sweet, with the hood of her evening cloak over her bright
head and framing the dearest face in the world. She had always clung to
him with her soft arms about his neck, and he had not minded her absence
since she was enjoying herself as she ought at her age.

He climbed up the stairs of the high