ould any one think the worse of Daisy? The more
fools they!" and he laughed cheerfully, adding, "I only wish she'd let
me show her I think none the worse of her. Why, it's preposterous, sir!"

"Preposterous or not," answered Medland, "half the people in the place
will let her know the difference. I may agree with you--God knows how I
should like to be able to!--but there's no blinking the fact. Well, I
must tell her."

He recollected telling the same story to the other woman he loved, and
he shrank in sudden dread, lest his daughter should say what Alicia had
said, "To me it is--horrible!" The words echoed in his brain. "Ah, I
can't speak of it," she had cried, and the gesture of her hand as she
repelled him lived before his eyes again. Surely Daisy would not do that
to him!

"I should be like Lear--without a grievance," he said to himself, with
a wry smile. "The very height of tragedy!"

It was near midnight before he put away his work. Norburn had left him
alone two hours before, and he rose now, laid down his pipe, and went to
look for his daughter in her little sitting-room. His heart was very
heavy; he must make her understand now why a man who made love to her
should be hastily sent away by his friends, what her father had
condemned her to, what manner of man he was; he must seem to destroy or
impair the perfect sweetness of memory wherein she held her mother.

He opened the door softly. She was sitting in a large armchair, over a
little bit of bright fire; save for gleams suddenly coming and going, as
a coal blazed and died down again, the room was in darkness. He walked
up to her and knelt by the chair, his head almost on a level with hers.

"Well, Daisy, what are you doing?"

She put out a hand and laid it on his with a gentle pressure.

"I'm thinking," she said. "Do you want a light?"

"No, I like it dark best--best for what I have to say."

Suddenly she threw her arms round his neck, drawing him to her and
kissing his face.

"I'd do the same if you'd killed him yourself," she whispered in the
extravagance of her love, and kissed him again.

"But, Daisy, you don't know."

"Yes, I do. He told me. He's been here."

"Who?"

"Jack Norburn. He said you would hate telling me, so he did. You mustn't
mind, dear, you mustn't mind. Oh, you didn't think it would make any
difference to me, dear, did you? What do I care? Mrs. Puttock may care,
and Lady Eynesford, and all the rest, but what do I care if I