But the next instant some one had caught her: a hand was on her shoulder, and a stern, astonished voice cried, "Lulu! is it possible this can be you? What are you doing out here in the public road alone, and in the darkness of evening? Where were you going?"
"I—I—don't want—to tell you, papa," she faltered.
"Where were you going?" he repeated, in a tone that said an answer he would have, and that at once.
"Nowhere—anywhere to get away from this place, where everybody hates me!" she replied sullenly, trying to wrench herself free. "Please let me go, and I'll never come back to trouble you any more."
He made no reply to that, but simply took her band in a firm grasp, and led her back to the house, back to her own room, where he shut himself in with her, locking the door on the inside.
Then he dropped her hand, and began pacing the floor to and fro, seemingly in deep and troubled thought, his arms folded, his head bowed upon his breast.
A servant had brought in a light during Lulu's absence; and now, looking timidly up at her father, she saw his face for the first time since they had bidden each other farewell a year before. It struck her as not only very pale, stern, and grief-stricken, but very much older and more deeply lined than she remembered it: she did not know that the change had been wrought almost entirely in the last few hours, yet recognized it with a pang nevertheless.
"Papa is growing old," she thought: "are there gray hairs in his head, I wonder?" Then there came dimly to her recollection some Bible words about bringing a father's gray hairs down with sorrow to the grave. "Was her misconduct killing her father?" She burst into an agony of sobs and tears at the thought.
He lifted his head, and looked at her gravely, and with mingled sternness and compassion.
"Take off that hat and coat, get your night-dress, and make yourself ready for bed," he commanded, then, stepping to the table, sat down, drew the lamp nearer, opened her Bible, lying there, and slowly turned over the leaves as if in search of some particular passage, while she moved slowly about the room, tremblingly and tearfully obeying his order.