Raeburn, remembering his hasty speech, called Erica into the study the moment he heard her return. He was still very pale, and with a curiously rigid look about his face.
“I was right, you see, in my prophecy of rocks ahead,” he exclaimed, throwing down his pen. “You have come home to a rough time, Erica, and to an overharassed father.”
“The more harassed the father, the more reason that he should have a child to help him,” said Erica, sitting down on the arm of his chair, and putting back the masses of white hair which hung over his forehead.
“Oh, child!” he said, with a sigh, “if I can but keep a cool head and a broad heart through the years of trouble before us!”
“Years!” exclaimed Erica, dismayed.
“This affair may drag on almost indefinitely, and a personal strife is apt to be lowering.”
“Yes,” said Erica, musingly, “to be libeled does set one's back up dreadfully, and to be much praised humbles one to the very dust.”
“What will the Fane-Smiths say to this? Will they believe it of me?”
“I can't tell,” said Erica, hesitatingly.
“'He that's evil deemed is half hanged,'” said Raeburn bitterly. “Never was there a truer saying than that.”