for two
hours, staring straight before him, until, just after four o'clock,
the door was suddenly flung open, and a slim, athletic young girl,
with a wealth of soft fair hair, a perfect countenance, a sweet,
lovable expression, and a pair of merry blue eyes, burst into the
room, crying--

"Hallo, dad! Here I am--so glad to be back again with you!" And,
bending over him, she gave him a sounding kiss upon the cheek.

She was verily a picture of youthful beauty, in her cool, pale grey
gown, her hair dressed low, and secured by a bow of black velvet,
while her big black hat suited her to perfection, her blue eyes
adoring in their gaze and her lovely face flushed with pleasure at her
home-coming.

Her father took her hand, and, gazing lovingly into her eyes, said in
a slow voice--

"And I, too, darling, am glad to have you at home. Life here is very
dull indeed without you."

That night, when seated together in the pretty old-fashioned
drawing-room before retiring to bed--a room of bright chintzes, costly
knick-knacks, and big blue bowls of sweet-smelling pot-pourri--Sonia
looked delightful in her black net dinner-gown, cut slightly
_decollete_, and wearing around her slim white throat a simple
necklace of pale pink coral.

"My dear," exclaimed her father in a slow, hesitating way, after her
fingers had been running idly over the keys of the piano, "I want to
speak very seriously to you for a few moments."

She rose in surprise, and came beside his chair. He grasped her soft
hand, and she sank upon her knees, as she so often did when they spoke
in confidence.

"Well--I've been wondering, child, what--what you will do in future,"
he said, with a catch in his voice. "Perhaps--perhaps I may have to go
away for a very, very long time--years perhaps--on a long journey, and
I shall, I fear, be compelled to leave you, to----"

"To leave me, dad!" gasped the girl, dismayed. "No--surely--you won't
do that? What could I do without you--without my dear, devoted dad--my
only friend!"

"You will have to--to do without me, dearest--to--to forget your
father," said the white-faced man in a low, broken voice. "I couldn't
take you with me. It would be impossible."

The girl was silent; her slim hand was clutching his convulsively; her
eyes filled with the light of unshed tears.

"But what should I do, dad, without you?" she cried. "Why do you speak
so strangely? Why do you hide so many things from me still--about our
past?