I heard her breath go through her parted lips in a long sigh, and she looked away from me.

"He cared," she said, "as much as that."

"He cared for you as much," I said. I was a little doubtful as to what she meant. But I know now.

She asked me if I had come to tell her that.

I said I thought it was as well she should realize it. But I'd come to ask her—if she cared for him—to let him off. To—to——

She stopped me with it as I fumbled.

"To give Papa up?"

I said, to give him up as far as Grevill was concerned.

She reminded me that it was to be Grevill or nobody.

Then, I said, it had much better be nobody. If she didn't want to do her father harm.