“No, I must go for them myself—”
For a moment they faced one another. He wondered what his father intended to do. Then—with a genial laugh, Mr. Westcott said: “Well, my boy, just as you please—just as you please. I know you'll come back to your old father—I know you'll come back—”
He blew the candle out and put his arm through his son's and they went downstairs together.
CHAPTER III
NORAH MONOGUE
I
Peter found, next morning, Miss Monogue sitting by her window. She gave him at once the impression of something kept alive by a will-power so determined that Death himself could only stand aside and wait until it might waver.
She was so thin that sitting there in the clear white colours of the sky beyond her window she seemed like fine silk, something that, at an instant's breath, would be swept like a shadow, into the air. She wore something loose and white and over her shoulders there was a grey shawl. Her grey hair was as untidy as of old, escaping from the order that it had been intended to keep and falling over her beautiful eyes, so that continually she moved her hand—so thin and white with its deep purple veins—to push it back. In this still white figure the eyes burnt with an amazing fire. What eyes they were!