a white face and march off to her
room with her candle. She locked herself in and her sister couldn't get
at her that night. It was another of Delia's inspirations not to try,
after she had felt that the door was fast. She forbore, in the exercise
of a great discretion, but she herself for the ensuing hours slept no
wink. Nevertheless the next morning, as early as ten o'clock, she had
the energy to drag her father out to the banker's and to keep him out
two hours. It would be inconceivable now that Gaston shouldn't turn up
before dejeuner. He did turn up; about eleven o'clock he came in and
found Francie alone. She noticed, for strangeness, that he was very
pale at the same time that he was sunburnt; also that he didn't for an
instant smile at her. It was very certain there was no bright flicker
in her own face, and they had the most singular, the most unnatural
meeting. He only said as he arrived: "I couldn't come last evening;
they made it impossible; they were all there and we were up till three
o'clock this morning." He looked as if he had been through terrible
things, and it wasn't simply the strain of his attention to so much
business in America. What passed next she couldn't remember afterwards;
it seemed but a few seconds before he said to her slowly, holding her
hand--before this he had pressed his lips to hers silently--"Is it
true, Francie, what they say (and they swear to it!) that YOU told that
blackguard those horrors; that that infamous letter's only a report of
YOUR talk?"

"I told him everything--it's all me, ME, ME!" the girl replied
exaltedly, without pretending to hesitate an instant as to what he might
mean.

Gaston looked at her with deep eyes, then walked straight away to the
window and remained there in silence. She herself said nothing more. At
last the young man went on: "And I who insisted to them that there was
no natural delicacy like yours!"

"Well, you'll never need to insist about anything any more!" she cried.
And with this she dashed out of the room by the nearest door. When Delia
and Mr. Dosson returned the red salon was empty and Francie was again
locked in her room. But this time her sister forced an entrance.

XIII

Mr. Dosson, as we know, was, almost more than anything else, loosely
contemplative, and the present occasion could only minister to that side
of his nature, especially as, so far at least as his observation of his
daughters went, it had not urged him into un