e replied, enchanted by her instinctive feminine surrender and
reliance upon him, which seemed the more precious in that creature so
proud and reserved to all others. 'Do! Where is your father?'

'Reading the _Signal_ in the dining-room.'

Every business man in the Five Towns reads the _Staffordshire Signal_
from beginning to end every night.

'I will see him. Of course he is your father; but I will just tell
him--as decently as I can--that neither you nor I will stand this
nonsense.'

'You mustn't--you mustn't see him.'

'Why not?'

'It will only lead to unpleasantness.'

'That can't be helped.'

'He never, never changes when once he has _said_ a thing. I know him.'

Clive was arrested by something in her tone, something new to him, that
in its poignant finality seemed to have caught up and expressed in a
single instant that bitterness of a lifetime's renunciation which falls
to the lot of most women.

'Will you come outside?' he asked in a different voice.

Without replying, she led the way down the long garden, which ended in
an ivy-grown brick wall and a panorama of the immense valley of
industries below. It was a warm, cloudy evening. The last silver tinge
of an August twilight lay on the shoulder of the hill to the left. There
was no moon, but the splendid watch-fires of labour flamed from ore-heap
and furnace across the whole expanse, performing their nightly miracle
of beauty. Trains crept with noiseless mystery along the middle
distance, under their canopies of yellow steam. Further off the
far-extending streets of Hanbridge made a map of starry lines on the
blackness. To the south-east stared the cold, blue electric lights of
Knype railway-station. All was silent, save for a distant thunderous
roar, the giant breathing of the forge at Cauldon Bar Ironworks.

Eva leaned both elbows on the wall and looked forth.

'Do you mean to say,' said Clive, 'that Mr. Brunt will actually stick by
what he has said?'

'Like grim death,' said Eva.

'But what's his idea?'

'Oh! how can I tell you?' she burst out passionately.

'Perhaps I did wrong. Perhaps I ought to have warned him earlier--said
to him, "Father, Clive Timmis is courting me!" Ugh! He cannot bear to be
surprised about anything. But yet he must have known.... It was all an
accident, Clive--all an accident. He saw you leaving the shop yesterday.
He would say he _caught_ you leaving the shop--_sneaking_ off like----'

'But, Eva----'

'I kno