en wrong in the "personal" one, as well: the
mysterious difficulty over Fanchon's Mr. Gray, who had looked so ashamed
last night. What feud could they make over him, of all people in the
world? He looked strong enough to take care of his own quarrels, even if
he was so rigorously bound by Fanchon's apron-string when it came to a
word with another girl!

But the conclusion that her father had been in error did not lessen the
pathetic appeal of the solitary figure facing the ridicule of the crowd.
She felt that he always honestly believed himself in the right; she
knew that he was vain; that he had an almost monstrous conception of his
dignity; and, realizing the bitterness of that public humiliation which
he had undergone, she understood the wrath, the unspeakable pain and
sense of outrage, which must have possessed him.

And now she was letting him go forth upon a journey--his way beset with
the chances of illness and accident--whence he might never return; she
was letting him go without seeing him again; letting him go with no
word of farewell from his daughter. In brief: she was a wicked girl. She
turned the colt's head abruptly to the west and touched his flanks with
her whip.

So it fell out that as the packet foamed its passage backward from
Carewe's wharf into the current, the owner of the boat, standing upon
the hurricane deck, heard a cry from the shore, and turned to behold
his daughter dash down to the very end of the wharf on the well-lathered
colt. Miss Betty's hair was blown about her face; her cheeks were rosy,
her eager eyes sparkling from more than the hard riding.

"Papa!" she cried, "I'm sorry!"

She leaned forward out of the saddle, extending her arms to him
appealingly in a charming gesture, and, absolutely ignoring the idlers
on the wharf and the passengers on the steamer, was singly intent upon
the tall figure on the hurricane-deck. "Papa--good-by. Please forgive
me!"

"By the Almighty, but that's a fine woman!" said the captain of the boat
to a passenger from Rouen. "Is she his daughter?"

"Please forgive me!" the clear voice came again, with its quaver of
entreaty, across the widening water; and then, as Mr. Carewe made
no sign, by word or movement, of hearing her, and stood without the
slightest alteration of his attitude, she cried to him once more:

"Good-by!"

The paddle-wheels reversed; the boat swung down the river, Mr. Carewe
still standing immovable on the hurricane-deck, while