“Mrs. Fentolin,” Hamel said firmly.  “I like to do what I can to please and benefit my friends, especially those who have been kind to me.  I will be quite frank with you.  There is nothing you could ask me which I would not do for your daughter’s sake—­if I were convinced that it was for her good.”

Mrs. Seymour Fentolin seemed to be trembling a little.  Her hands were crossed upon her bosom.

“You have known her for so short a time,” she murmured.

Hamel smiled confidently.

“I will not weary you,” he said, “with the usual trite remarks.  I will simply tell you that the time has been long enough.  I love your daughter.”

Mrs. Fentolin sat quite still.  Only in her eyes, fixed steadily seawards, there was the light of something new, as though some new thought was stirring in her brain.  Her lips moved, although the sound which came was almost inaudible.

“Why not?” she murmured, as though arguing with some unseen critic of her thoughts.  “Why not?”

“I am not a rich man,” Hamel went on, “but I am fairly well off.  I could afford to be married at once, and I should like—­”

She turned suddenly upon him and gripped his wrist.

“Listen,” she interrupted, “you are a traveller, are you not?  You have been to distant countries, where white people go seldom; inaccessible countries, where even the arm of the law seldom reaches.  Couldn’t you take her away there, take her right away, travel so fast that nothing could catch you, and hide—­hide for a little time?”

Hamel stared at his companion, for a moment, blankly.  Her attitude was so unexpected, her questioning so fierce.

“My dear Mrs. Fentolin,” he began—.

She suddenly relaxed her grip of his arm.  Something of the old hopelessness was settling down upon her face.  Her hands fell into her lap.

“No,” she interrupted, “I forgot!  I mustn’t talk like that.  She, too, is part of the sacrifice.”

“Part of the sacrifice,” Hamel repeated, frowning.  “Is she, indeed!  I don’t know what sacrifice you mean, but Esther is the girl whom sooner or later, somehow or other, I am going to make my wife, and when she is my wife, I shall see to it that she isn’t afraid of Miles Fentolin or of any other man breathing.”

A gleam of hopefulness shone through the stony misery of the woman’s face.

“Does Esther care?” she asked softly.

“How can I tell?  I can only hope so.  If she doesn’t yet, she shall some day.  I suppose,” he added, with a sigh, “it is rather too soon yet to expect that she should.  If it is necessary, I can wait.”

Mrs. Fentolin’s eyes were once more fixed upon the Tower.  The sun had caught the top of the telephone wire and played around it till it seemed like a long, thin shaft of silver.

“If you go down there,” she said, “Esther will not be allowed to see you at all.  Mr. Fentolin has decided to take it as a personal affront.  You will be ostracised from here.”