whispered.

"Papa, I can't; I--"

"There is nothing you can do, sweetheart; there is nothing for you to
worry about. Papa will take care of you always, whatever happens. Go
to bed now, and go to sleep, honey."

"But, papa, I can't sleep. Let me stay and--"

"No, dear. There is nothing you can do. It will only worry me to have
you stay. Go to bed, and put all this out of your mind. It will all
come right in the end."

Carroll kissed Charlotte again, and put her gently from him, and she
disappeared in her own room with a suppressed sob.

"I am glad Ina is out of the way," Anna said, but with no bitterness.

"So am I," Carroll agreed, simply.

"I wish Charlotte had as good a man to look out for her," said Anna.

Carroll straightened himself with quick pride. "I shall look out for
her," he said. "You need not think I am quite out of the running yet,
when it comes to looking out for my own flesh and blood."

"No, of course you are not, Arthur. I did not mean to imply any such
thing," Anna rejoined, hastily. "I was only-- Come into my room. Amy
is fast asleep by this time, and if she is not she has a headache,
and you might as well try to consult with an infant in arms as Amy
with a headache. And something has to be done."

"Yes, you are right, Anna," Carroll replied, with a heavy sigh.

"Those people will all go when they get tired of waiting. There is no
use in our bothering with them any more to-night. Come in."

Anna led the way into her room, and closed the door. A lamp burned
dimly on the dresser amid a confusion of laces and ribbons. The whole
room looked in a soft foam of dainty disorder. Anna did not turn the
light up. She stood looking at her brother in the half-light, and her
face was at once angry and tender.

"Well?" said she, with a sigh of desperate inquiry.

"Well?" rejoined Carroll.

"What next?"

"The Lord knows!"

"Something has to be done. We are up against a dead wall again. And
for some reason it strikes me as a deader wall than ever before."

Carroll nodded.

"We cannot stay in Banbridge any longer?" Anna said, interrogatively.

"We may have to," Carroll replied, curtly.

"You mean?"

"There may be a little difficulty about getting out. We could not
leave the State, anyhow, and--"

"And what? We can go somewhere else in the State, I suppose. I am not
particularly in love with this section of the union, but it all makes
little difference after one reaches a certain point."