“I feel like a traitor to your father, Flora. What are you going to do next?”
“I am going to see it through,” said Flora doggedly. “At least you will admit that to do a thing like this by halves, is a great deal worse than useless. I have saved my father from what must have broken his heart.”
“You have done evil that good may come,” he quoted grimly.
“If you like to put it so.” Flora was inexorable.
“He has suffered too much already.”
“You mock your own God,” said Quentillian, with sudden, low vehemence. “You profess to believe in Him, to trust Him, and yet you deceive and manoeuvre and plot, sooner than leave your father to his dealings. I have small belief in a personal God, Flora, but I can see no justification in endeavouring madly to stand between another soul, and life.”
She gazed at him piteously.
“Do you think I am not unhappy—that I have not been torn in two? He was angry, Owen, when he thought I had made a mistake about the appointment, and oh, the relief of it! I should have welcomed it if he had hit me—I deserved it all, and far more besides. If I am doing wrong, I am suffering for it.”
Quentillian, looking at her haggard, tragic face, felt sure that she spoke literal truth.
“When does Lucilla come home?” he suddenly asked.