“Yes, I will go,” she declared. “I do not care whether you have told me the truth or not. I am going to let the world know who Canon Ffolliot is.”
“You will do as seems best to you,” my father said, quietly.
He had risen to his feet, and stood with his hand at his side, breathing heavily, in an attitude now familiar to me, although I had never fully understood its cause. His pale lips were twitching with pain, and there were dark rims under his eyes. She looked at him and laughed brutally.
“Your daughter is an excellent actress,” she said, looking back over her shoulder as she moved towards the door. “I have no doubt but that the art is inherited. We shall see!”
Obeying my father’s gesture, I rang the bell. We heard the front door open and close after her. Then I threw my arms around his neck in a passionate abandonment of grief.
“It is all my fault,” I sobbed—“my fault! But for me she would have forgiven.”
My father smiled a faint, absent smile. He was smoothing my hair gently with one hand and gazing steadfastly into the fire. His face was serene, almost happy. Yet the blow had fallen.