“It won't be an idle day,” said he seriously. “We shall be very busy.”
“Busy?” she inquired apprehensively.
“Talking things over,” he said briefly. “Of course, I ought to go home and face the music.”
“What do you mean?”
“It's something I can't talk about, Lyddy. Let's forget our troubles for to-day.”
“Better still, let us share them. Stay here with me. Don't go home to-day, Freddy. I———”
“Oh, I've got to have it out with father some time,” he said bitterly. “It may as well be now as later on. We've got to come to an understanding.”
Her heart was cold. She was afraid of what would come out of that “understanding.” All night long she had lain with wide-staring eyes, thinking of the horrid thing James Brood had said to her. Far in the night she aroused her mother from a sound sleep to put the question that had been torturing her for hours. Mrs Desmond confessed that her husband had told her that Brood had never considered Frederic to be his son, and then the two lay side by side for the remainder of the night without uttering a word, and yet keenly awake. They were thinking of the hour when Brood would serve notice on the intruder!
Lydia now realised that the hour was near. Frederic himself would challenge the wrath of all these bitter years, and it would fall upon his unsuspecting head with cruel, obliterating force.
The girl shivered as with a racking chill. “Have it out with father,” he had said in his ignorance. He was preparing to rush headlong to his doom. To prevent that catastrophe was the single, all-absorbing thought in Lydia's mind. Her only hope lay in keeping the men apart until she could extract from Brood a promise to be merciful, and this she intended to accomplish if she had to go down on her knees and grovel before the man.