aced himself, motionless. It struck
her suddenly how frail and white he looked. In the shadowy light of her
drawing-room, he was almost like a spirit sitting there in his grey
tweed--silvery from head to foot. Her conscience smote her. It is
written of the very old that they shall pass, by virtue of their long
travel, out of the country of the understanding of the young, till the
natural affections are blurred by creeping mists such as steal across the
moors when the sun is going down.

Cecilia's heart ached with a little ache for all the times she had
thought: 'If father were only not quite so---'; for all the times she had
shunned asking him to come to them, because he was so---; for all the
silences she and Stephen had maintained after he had spoken; for all the
little smiles she had smiled. She longed to go and kiss his brow, and
make him feel that she was aching. But she did not dare; he seemed so
far away; it would be ridiculous.

Coming down the room, and putting her slim foot on the fender with a
noise, so that if possible he might both see and hear her, she turned her
anxious face towards him, and said: "Father!"

Mr. Stone looked up, and seeing somebody who seemed to be his elder
daughter, answered "Yes, my dear?"

"Are you sure you're feeling quite the thing? Thyme said she thought
seeing that poor baby had upset you."

Mr. Stone felt his body with his hand.

"I am not conscious of any pain," he said.

"Then you'll stay to dinner, dear, won't you?"

Mr. Stone's brow contracted as though he were trying to recall his past.

"I have had no tea," he said. Then, with a sudden, anxious look at his
daughter: "The little girl has not come to me. I miss her. Where is
she?"

The ache within Cecilia became more poignant.

"It is now two days," said Mr. Stone, "and she has left her room in that
house--in that street."

Cecilia, at her wits' end, answered: "Do you really miss her, Father?"

"Yes," said Mr. Stone. "She is like--" His eyes wandered round the room
as though seeking something which would help him to express himself.
They fixed themselves on the far wall. Cecilia, following their gaze,
saw a little solitary patch of sunlight dancing and trembling there. It
had escaped the screen of trees and houses, and, creeping through some
chink, had quivered in. "She is like that," said Mr. Stone, pointing
with his finger. "It is gone!" His finger dropped; he uttered a deep
sigh.

'How dread