'Dear me, he's only twenty-nine.... And he's got a house in Cavendish Square and a house in the country. He must be very well-to-do; and he belongs to the Junior Carlton and two other clubs.... And he's got a sister who's married to Lord Edward Lake.' Mrs Gray closed the book and held it with a finger to mark the place, like a Bible. 'It's very sad to think of the dissipation of so many members of the aristocracy. It sets such a bad example to the lower classes.'
X
They showed old Griffith a portrait of Daisy in her theatrical costume.
'Has she come to that?' he said.
He looked at it a moment, then savagely tore it in pieces and flung it in the fire.
'Oh, my God!' he groaned; he could not get out of his head the picture, the shamelessness of the costume, the smile, the evident prosperity and content. He felt now that he had lost his daughter indeed. All these years he had kept his heart open to her, and his heart had bled when he thought of her starving, ragged, perhaps dead. He had thought of her begging her bread and working her beautiful hands to the bone in some factory. He had always hoped that some day she could return to him, purified by the fire of suffering.... But she was prosperous and happy and rich. She was applauded, worshipped; the papers were full of her praise. Old Griffith was filled with a feeling of horror, of immense repulsion. She was flourishing in her sin, and he loathed her. He had been so ready to forgive her when he thought her despairing and unhappy; but now he was implacable.
Three months later Mrs Griffith came to her husband, trembling with excitement, and handed him a cutting from a paper,—
'We hear that Miss Daisy Griffith, who earned golden opinions in the provinces last winter with her Dick Whittington, is about to be married to Sir Herbert Ously-Farrowham. Her friends, and their name is legion, will join with us in the heartiest congratulations.'
He returned the paper without answering.