“You are in love with him?”

“Yes, and he has asked me to go away with him.”  And as she answered, she wondered at the quickness with which her father had guessed that it was Owen.  He was such a clever man; the moment his thoughts were diverted from his music, he understood things as well as the most worldly, and she felt that he would understand her, that she must open her heart to him.

“If I don’t go away with him I shall die, or kill myself, or go mad.  It is terrible to have to tell you these things, father, I know, but I must.  I was ill when he went away to Greece, you remember.  It was nothing but love of him.”

“Did he not ask you to marry him?”

“No, he will never marry anyone.”

“And that made no difference to you?”

“Oh, father, don’t be angry, don’t think me horrid.  You are looking at me as if you never saw me before.  I know I ought to have been angry when he asked me to go away with him, but somehow I wasn’t.  I don’t know that I even wanted him to marry me.  I want to go away and be a great singer, and he is not more to blame than I am.  I can’t tell lies.  What is the use of telling lies?  If I were to tell you anything else, it would be untrue.”

“But are you going away with him?”

“I don’t know.  Not if I can help it;” and at that moment her eyes went to the portrait of her mother.

“You lost your mother very early, and I have neglected you.  She ought to be here to protect you.”

“No, no, father; she would not understand me as well as you do.”

“So you are glad that she is not here?”

Evelyn nodded, and then she said—­

“If he were to go away and I were left here again, I don’t know what would become of me.  It isn’t my fault, father; I can’t help it.”

“I did not know that you were like this.  Your mother—­”

“Ah I mother and I are quite different.  I am more like you, father.  You can’t blame me; you have been in love with women—­with mother, at least—­and ought to understand.”

“Evelyn ... these are subjects that cannot be discussed between us.”

The eyes of the mother watched them, and there was something in her cold, distant glance which went to their hearts, but they could not interpret its meaning.

“I either had to go away, father, telling you nothing, or I had to tell you everything.”

“I will go to Sir Owen.”

“No, father, you mustn’t.  Promise me you won’t.  I have trusted you, and you mustn’t make me regret my trust.  This is my secret.”  He was frightened by the strange light that appeared in her eyes, and he felt that an appeal to Owen would be like throwing oil on a flame.  “You mustn’t go to Sir Owen; you have promised you won’t.  I don’t know what would happen if you did.”

His daughter’s confession had frightened him, and he knew not what answer to make to her.  When the depths find voice we stand aghast, knowing neither ourselves nor those whom we have lived with always.  He was caught in the very den of his being, and seemed at every moment to be turning over a leaf of his past life.