“Dear papa, I will go at once.  You need not wait for me here, Janet.  Just turn the lights down low—­they make the room so warm—­and leave the windows partly open, and then go to bed, my girl, I shall not want you again tonight,” said Salome, as she passed out of the chamber and went down to the long hall, at the opposite extremity of which was her father’s room.

She entered silently, and found the banker wrapped in his gray silk dressing-gown and seated in his large resting-chair.

“Come and sit by me, my dear.  I only wanted to have a little talk with you tonight,” he said, holding out his hand to her.

She went up to him, clasped and kissed the out-stretched hand, and then seated herself, not on the chair by his side, for that would not have brought her near enough to him, but on the footstool at his feet, so that she could lay her head upon his knees.

“Salome, my darling, I have not been a good father to you,” he said, sadly, as he ran his long white fingers through the tresses of the little dark-haired head that lay upon his knees.

“Oh, papa! the best and dearest papa that ever lived!” she answered, drawing his hand to her lips and kissing it fondly.

“No, no; I have not been a good father to you, my poor motherless child.  I feel it to-night.  I left you fourteen years in a foreign convent, and scarcely ever saw you.  Was that being a good father to you, my child?”

“Yes, dear, it was.  I had to be educated.  And the nuns did their whole duty by me, did they not?” said Salome, soothingly.

“They sent me home a sweet and lovely child, who in the three years that she has been my greatest blessing and comfort has made me feel and know how much I lost in banishing her from my presence so long—­fourteen years!—­a time never to be redeemed!” said the banker, with a sigh.

“Yes, papa, dear.  It can and shall be redeemed.  For now you know I shall live with you as long as you live.  My marriage will not deprive you of your daughter, but give you a dear and noble son.  You know it is settled that after our brief wedding we shall return to Lone, and you and the duke, and Arondelle and myself, will all live here together until the meeting of Parliament in February, and then we shall go up to London together.  So cheer up, papa.  All the coming years shall compensate for all we have lost in the past,” said Salome, gayly caressing him.

“‘The coming years?’ Ah, my darling! do you forget that I am quite an old man to be your father?  You were the child of my old age, Salome!  I was nearly fifty when you were born.  I am nearly seventy now!”

“Dear father!” murmured Salome, caressing him with ineffable tenderness.