John Strong touched her fingers and walked with her towards the door.
“Good-bye, madam,” he said. “I hope you will have a pleasant drive to Gabingly.”
“Gabingly? Not Gabingly, Rilchester.”
“Pardon me, I was forgetting.”
“Rilchester. I leave for London to-night.”
When the woman in the pink toque with her silks and perfumes had gone, and the sound of the carriage wheels had died beyond the meadows, John Strong passed back to the library and found Judith standing by the window. There was so strange a look upon her father’s face that Judith gazed at him and was mute. Haggard as he looked, a certain grim joy seemed to shine in his gray eyes, a joy that betrayed the passions that were working in his heart. Judith went to him and held his arm.
“Father, what is it?” she asked.
He partly leaned upon her, with one hand upon her shoulder.
“I was in the wrong,” he said, doggedly.
“Father!”