“Have you heard from my father?”
“Yes—what I expected.”
“But it will make no difference in the long run.”
“Dearest, do I not trust your brave words? From Trieste I hear that the endeavour of Benista to recover his wife is proved. There’s one step of the chain. Is it dragging us down, or setting us free?”
“Free—free from the perplexities of property,” cried Dolores. “Free to carve out a life.”
“Certainly I have wished I was a younger son. Only if it could have come in some other way!”
Dolores had to go to luncheon at Miss Vincent’s, and then to deliver her lecture. It was well that she had given it so often as almost to know it by heart, for the volcano of anxiety was surging high within her.
As she went out she saw Gerald waiting for her, and his whole mien spoke of failure.
“Failed! Yes,” he said. “The poor child is regularly bound to that Jellicoe, the master of the concern, for twenty-five pounds, the fine that my uncle brought on the mother, as O’Leary said with a grin, and she is still under sixteen.”
“Is there no hope till then?”