wed all their intercourse; she fancied that by speaking she
might have been able to banish the phantom, or reduce its terror to what
she believed to be the due proportion. But her father was evidently
determined to show that he was never more to be spoken to on that
subject; and all she could do was to follow his lead on the rare
occasions that they fell into something like the old confidential
intercourse. As yet, to her, he had never given way to anger; but before
her he had often spoken in a manner which both pained and terrified her.
Sometimes his eye in the midst of his passion caught on her face of
affright and dismay, and then he would stop, and make such an effort to
control himself as sometimes ended in tears. Ellinor did not understand
that both these phases were owing to his increasing habit of drinking
more than he ought to have done. She set them down as the direct effects
of a sorely burdened conscience; and strove more and more to plan for his
daily life at home, how it should go on with oiled wheels, neither a jerk
nor a jar. It was no wonder she looked wistful, and careworn, and old.
Miss Monro was her great comfort; the total unconsciousness on that
lady's part of anything below the surface, and yet her full and delicate
recognition of all the little daily cares and trials, made her sympathy
most valuable to Ellinor, while there was no need to fear that it would
ever give Miss Monro that power of seeing into the heart of things which
it frequently confers upon imaginative people, who are deeply attached to
some one in sorrow.

There was a strong bond between Ellinor and Dixon, although they scarcely
ever exchanged a word save on the most common-place subjects; but their
silence was based on different feelings from that which separated Ellinor
from her father. Ellinor and Dixon could not speak freely, because their
hearts were full of pity for the faulty man whom they both loved so well,
and tried so hard to respect.

This was the state of the household to which Ralph Corbet came down at
Easter. He might have been known in London as a brilliant diner-out by
this time; but he could not afford to throw his life away in fireworks;
he calculated his forces, and condensed their power as much as might be,
only visiting where he was likely to meet men who could help in his
future career. He had been invited to spend the Easter vacation at a
certain country house which would be full of such human steppi