The possibility of such a request as had been now made had been already discussed between Dolly and her father.  Dolly had said that the idea was absurd.  Mr. Grey had not seen the absurdity.  There had been nothing more common, he had said, than that a young partner should marry an old partner’s daughter.  “It’s not put into the partnership deed?” Dolly had rejoined.  But Dolly had never believed that the time would come.  Now it had come.

Mr. Barry had as yet possessed no more than a fourth of the business.  He had come in without any capital, and had been contented with a fourth.  He now suggested to Dolly that on their marriage the business should be equally divided.  And he had named the house in which they would live.  There was a pleasant, genteel residence on the other side of the water, at Putney.  Miss Grey had suggested that the business might be divided in a manner that would be less burdensome to Mr. Barry.  As for the house, she could not leave her father.  Upon the whole, she had thought that it would be better for both of them that they should remain as they were.  By that Miss Grey had not intended to signify that Mr. Barry was to remain single, but that he would have to do so in reference to Miss Grey.

When he was gone Dolly Grey spent the remainder of the afternoon in contemplating what would have been her condition had she agreed to join her lot to that of Mr. Barry, and she came to the conclusion that it would have been simply unendurable.  There was nothing of romance in her nature; but as she looked at matrimony, with all its blisses,—­and Mr. Barry among them,—­she told herself that death would be preferable.  “I know myself,” she said.  “I should come to hate him with a miserable hatred.  And then I should hate myself for having done him so great an evil.”  And as she continued thinking she assured herself that there was but one man with whom she could live, and that that was her father.  And then other questions presented themselves to her, which were not so easily answered.  What would become of her when he should go?  He was now sixty-six, and she was only thirty-two.  He was healthy for his age, but would complain of his work.  She knew that he must in course of nature go much the first.  Ten years he might live, while she might probably be called upon to endure for thirty more.  “I shall have to do it all alone,” she said; “all alone; without a companion, without one soul to whom I can open my own.  But if I were to marry Mr. Barry,” she continued, “I should at once be encumbered with a soul to whom I could not open my own.  I suppose I shall be enabled to live through it, as do others.”  Then she began to prepare for her father’s coming.  As long as he did remain with her she would make the most of him.

“Papa,” she said, as she took him by the hand as he entered the house and led him into the dining-room,—­“who do you think has been here?”

“Mr. Barry.”

“Then he has told you?”