“We had better get on with breakfast,” he said.  “You know that Cossey is coming up at ten o’clock.”

“Ten o’clock?” she said faintly.

“Yes.  I told him ten so that we could go to church afterwards if we wished to.  Of course, Ida, I am still in the dark as to what you have made up your mind to do, but whatever it is I thought that he had better once and for all hear your final decision from your own lips.  If, however, you feel yourself at liberty to tell it to me as your father, I shall be glad to hear it.”

She lifted her head and looked him full in the face, and then paused.  He had a cup of tea in his hand, and held it in the air half way to his mouth, while his whole face showed the over-mastering anxiety with which he was awaiting her reply.

“Make your mind easy, father,” she said, “I am going to marry Mr. Cossey.”

He put the cup down in such a fashion that he spilt half the tea, most of it over his own clothes, without even noticing it, and then turned away his face.

“Well,” he said, “of course it is not my affair, or at least only indirectly so, but I must say, my love, I congratulate you on the decision which you have come to.  I quite understand that you have been in some difficulty about the matter; young women often have been before you, and will be again.  But to be frank, Ida, that Quaritch business was not at all suitable, either in age, fortune, or in anything else.  Yes, although Cossey is not everything that one might wish, on the whole I congratulate you.”

“Oh, pray don’t,” broke in Ida, almost with a cry.  “Whatever you do, pray do not congratulate me!”

Her father turned round again and looked at her.  But Ida’s face had already recovered its calm, and he could make nothing of it.

“I don’t quite understand you,” he said; “these things are generally considered matters for congratulation.”

But for all he might say and all that he might urge in his mind to the contrary, he did more or less understand what her outburst meant.  He could not but know that it was the last outcry of a broken spirit.  In his heart he realised then, if he had never clearly realised it before, that this proposed marriage was a thing hateful to his daughter, and his conscience pricked him sorely.  And yet—­and yet—­it was but a woman’s fancy—­a passing fancy.  She would become reconciled to the inevitable as women do, and when her children came she would grow accustomed to her sorrow, and her trouble would be forgotten in their laughter.  And if not, well it was but one woman’s life which would be affected, and the very existence of his race and the very cradle that had nursed them from century to century were now at stake.  Was all this to be at the mercy of a girl’s whim?  No! let the individual suffer.

So he argued.  And so at his age and in his circumstances most of us would argue also, and, perhaps, considering all things, we should be right.  For in this world personal desires must continually give way to the welfare of others.  Did they not do so our system of society could not endure.