gain.

"Mrs. March," she said, in a low voice, and with a curious, apologetic
kind of embarrassment, "we have come--Fay wanted we should come and ask
if you knew about her father--"

"Why, didn't he come to you last night?" my wife began.

"Yes, he did," said Mrs. Hasketh, in a crest-fallen sort, "But we
thought--we thought--you might know where he was. And Fay--Did he tell
you what he was going to do?"

"Yes," my wife gasped back.

The young girl put aside her veil in turning to my wife, and showed a
face which had all the ill-starred beauty of poor Tedham, with something
more in it that she never got from that handsome reprobate--conscience,
soul--whatever we choose to call a certain effluence of heaven which
blesses us with rest and faith whenever we behold it in any human
countenance. She was very young-looking, and her voice had a wistful
innocence.

"Do you think my father will be here again to-night? Oh, I must see him!"

I perceived that my wife could not speak, and I said, to gain time,
"Why, I've been expecting him to come in at any moment;" and this was
true enough.

"I guess he's not very far off," said old Hasketh. "I don't believe but
what he'll turn up." Within the comfort these words were outwardly
intended to convey to the anxious child, I felt an inner contempt of
Tedham, a tacit doubt of the man's nature, which was more to me than the
explicit faith in his return. For some reason Hasketh had not trusted
Tedham's decision, and he might very well have done this without
impugning anything but the weakness of his will.

My wife now joined our side, apparently because it was the only theory
of the case that could be openly urged. "Oh, yes, I am sure. In fact he
promised my husband to let him know later where he was. Didn't you
understand him so, my dear?"

I had not understood him precisely to this effect, but I answered, "Yes,
certainly," and we began to reassure one another more and more. We
talked on and on to one another, but all the time we talked at the young
girl, or for her encouragement; but I suppose the rest felt as I did,
that we were talking provisionally, or without any stable ground of
conviction. For my part, though I indulged that contempt of Tedham, I
still had a lurking fear that the wretch had finally and forever
disappeared, and I had a vision, very disagreeable and definite, of
Tedham lying face downward in the pool of the old cockpit and shone on
by the stars in the hush