’It would be a hard thing if you were to do that for the sake of a stranger, dear.’

’No, no, Mary; he is not a stranger to me; Angus Egerton is not a stranger.  I know that he is noble and good.  But my father was all the world to me a year ago.  I could not do without his love.  I must obey him.’

’Believe me, dear, it will be wisest and best to do so.  You cannot tell what changes may come to pass in the future.  Obedience will make you very dear to your father; and the time may come in which he will think better of Mr. Egerton.’

‘O Mary, if I could hope that!’

‘Hope for everything, dear, if you do your duty.’

She grew a little more cheerful after this, and met her father at diner with quite a placid face, though it was still very pale.  Mrs. Darrell looked at her wonderingly, and with a half-contemptuous expression, I thought, as if this passion of her step-daughter’s seemed to her a very poor thing, after all.

Before the week was out, we heard that Mr. Egerton had left Yorkshire.  We did not go to the Pensildon fete.  Milly had a cold and kept her room, much to the regret of the Miss Collingwoods, who called every day to inquire about her.  She made this cold—­which was really a very slight affair—­an excuse for a week’s solitude, and at the end of that time reappeared among us with no trace of her secret sorrow.  It was only I, who was always with her, and knew her to the core of her heart, who could have told how hard a blow that disappointment had been, and how much it cost her to bear it so quietly.

CHAPTER X.

CHANGES AT THORNLEIGH.

The autumn and the early winter passed monotonously enough.  There was a good deal of company at Thornleigh Manor at first, for Mrs. Darrell hated solitude; but after a little time she grew tired of the people her husband knew, and the dinners and garden parties became less frequent.  I had found out, very soon after her return, that she was not happy—­that this easy prosperous life was in some manner a burden to her.  It was only in her husband’s presence that she made any pretence of being pleased or interested in things.  With him she was always the same—­always deferential, affectionate, and attentive; while he, on his side, was the devoted slave of her every whim and wish.

She was not unkind to Milly, but those two seemed instinctively to avoid each other.

The winter brought trouble to Thornleigh Manor.  It was well for Milly that she had tried to do her duty to her father, and had submitted herself patiently to his will.  About a fortnight before Christmas Mr. Darrell went to North Shields to make his annual investigation of the wharves and warehouses, and to take a kind of review of the year’s business.  He never returned alive.  He was seized with an apoplectic fit in the office, and carried to his hotel speechless.  His wife and Milly were summoned by a telegraphic message, and started for Shields by the first train that could convey them there; but they were too late.  He expired an hour before their arrival.