Then she felt happier.  The steamer had at least taken Hallam away, and her father was not now the courtly though somewhat reserved gentleman who had treated her with indulgent kindness until Hallam crossed his path.  It was a fine evening, and she sat still on the verandah wondering how the rift had imperceptibly widened between them, until again the blood crept to her forehead as she remembered that it was at his instigation she had detained Alton.  Still, though she realized that this could not be wholly forgotten, she took her part of the blame, and felt sorry for the harassed man whose anxieties were intensified by his solicitude for her welfare.  He was in difficulties, his health was failing, and she decided upon an attempt at reconciliation.  The respect she had cherished for him could never be quite restored, but she could be a more sympathetic daughter, and help him to bear his troubles.  Then as she glanced down across the inlet with eyes that grew softer, Forel and his wife came up through the garden.

“Still alone?” he said.  “Where is your father?”

“I think he is in your room,” said the girl.  “Mr. Hallam came in to see him.”

“Hallam?  Now I wonder——­” said Forel, and stopped, but Alice Deringham had seen his face, and being a woman took instinctive warning.

“I don’t think he wanted anything of importance, and he was only in a minute or two,” she said.

They went in together, but Forel was behind the girl, when she pushed open a door and then stopped just inside it.  Deringham was sitting before a table, and there was something that perplexed her in his attitude.  He seemed curiously still, and his head had fallen forward.

“Father,” she said, and her heart beat a trifle faster, for Deringham did not move.

His face was not visible, and moving forward she grew suddenly faint and cold as she touched his shoulder.  There was no response from the man, and she now noticed that he seemed huddled together; but she saw nothing more, for just then a hand was laid upon her arm.  Shaking off the grasp, she turned and saw her growing horror reflected in Forel’s face.

“You must come away, my dear,” he said hoarsely.

Alice Deringham shivered, but she stood very straight a moment, staring down with dilated eyes at the grim figure in the chair.

“Touch him.  Speak to him,” she said in a voice that set Forel’s nerves on edge, and then as the last faint hope died away, stretched out her hands with a little half-choked cry.

“Come away,” said Forel very huskily.

He was sensible that the girl’s hand was very cold as he drew her from the room, but he left her with his wife on the verandah and then went back hastily.  Forel was a kindly man, but he knew that speculation in Western mines has its under-side, and it was for the girl’s sake he stripped off the top sheet of the blotting-pad, which had a recent impression on it, and afterwards poured the remaining contents of a wineglass out into the stove.  Then he glanced all round the room before he went out to send for a doctor.  It was an hour later when he found his wife alone.