When, a few minutes before their dinner hour, her father hurried into the room, expectant of his usual affectionate welcome, she did not spring up to greet him. The sound of his brisk step failed to penetrate to her consciousness. He came over to her and put a fond hand on her shoulder.
"H'm—how's this, my dear?" he asked. "Not asleep? Brown study, eh?"
She looked up at him dully; but at sight of the loving concern in his eyes, the unendurable hardness of her grief suddenly melted to tears. She flung herself into his arms, to weep and sob with a violence of which he had never imagined his quiet high-bred daughter capable. Bewildered and alarmed by the storm of emotion, he knew not what to do, and so instinctively did what was right. He patted her on the back and murmured inarticulate sounds of love and pity.
His sympathy and the blessed relief of tears soon restored her quiet self-control. She ceased sobbing and drew away from him, mortified at her outburst.
"There now," he ventured. "You feel better, don't you?"
"I've been very silly!" she exclaimed, drying her tear-wet cheeks.
"You're never silly—that is, since you came home this time," he qualified.
"Because—because—" She stopped with an odd catch in her voice, and seemed again about to burst into tears.
"Because he taught you to be sensible,—you'd say."
"Ye—yes," she sobbed. "Oh, papa, I can't bear it—I can't! To think that after he'd shown himself so brave and strong—! But for that, I should never have—have come to this!"