"No, no! It is—it is——," she paused and clutched his arm, laughing hysterically. "Don't believe it, papa. It is not true. I can explain!"
"Explain? Not true? What are you talking about, Leslie! I tell you it is from one of the first dealers in London. Fame, fame, has come to me at last! Get ready at once! We will go by the first train we can catch!"
CHAPTER XXIII.
GOOD-BY, AND NOT ADIEU.
Leslie's heart seemed to stand still as she listened to her father's excited words. What should she do? she asked herself. Should she tell him that she had deceived him, that the message from the picture dealer was a mere subterfuge, a trick to get him and her up to town?
But she could not tell him this without explaining fully, without disclosing the whole story of her love for Yorke and the deceit he had practiced on her, and she shrank from the ordeal as one shrinks from fire.
She stood pale and trembling, her hands writhing together, her brain swimming, watching her father as he hurried to and fro picking up some article and putting it down again in another place under the impression that he was packing.
"Oh, papa," she faltered out at last, "don't go! Do not go. Write and—and ask. Oh, I implore you not to go!"