But he was very uneasy, and what Lily had told him since her return only increased his anxiety.  The house was a hotbed of conspiracy, and for her own reasons Elinor was remaining there.  It was no place for a sister of his.  But Elinor for years had only touched the outer fringes of his life, and his days were crowded with other things; the increasing arrogance of the strikers, the utter uselessness of trying to make terms with them, his own determination to continue to fight his futile political campaign.  He put her out of his mind.

Then, at the end of another week, a curious thing happened.  Anthony and Lily were in the library.  Old Anthony without a club was Old Anthony lost, and he had developed a habit, at first rather embarrassing to the others, of spending much of his time downstairs.  He was no sinner turned saint.  He still let the lash of his tongue play over the household, but his old zest in it seemed gone.  He made, too, small tentative overtures to Lily, intended to be friendly, but actually absurdly self-conscious.  Grace, watching him, often felt him rather touching.  It was obvious to her that he blamed himself, rather than Lily, for what had happened.

On this occasion he had asked Lily to read to him.

“And leave out the politics,” he had said, “I get enough of that wherever I go.”

As she read she felt him watching her, and in the middle of a paragraph he suddenly said: 

“What’s become of Cameron?”

“He must be very busy.  He is supporting Mr. Hendricks, you know.”

“Supporting him!  He’s carrying him on his back,” grunted Anthony.  “What is it, Grayson?”

“A lady—­a woman—­calling on Miss Cardew.”

Lily rose, but Anthony motioned her back.

“Did she give any name?”

“She said to say it was Jennie, sir.”

“Jennie!  It must be Aunt Elinor’s Jennie!”

“Send her in,” said Anthony, and stood waiting Lily noticed his face twitching; it occurred to her then that this strange old man might still love his daughter, after all the years, and all his cruelty.

It was the elderly servant from the Doyle house who came in, a tall gaunt woman, looking oddly unfamiliar to Lily in a hat.

“Why, Jennie!” she said.  And then:  “Is anything wrong?”

“There is and there isn’t,” Jennie said, somberly.  “I just wanted to tell you, and I don’t care if he kills me for it.  It was him that threw her downstairs.  I heard him hit her.”

Old Anthony stiffened.

“He threw Aunt Elinor downstairs?”

“That’s how she broke her leg.”

Sheer amazement made Lily inarticulate.

“But they said—­we didn’t know—­do you mean that she has been there all this time, hurt?”

“I mean just that,” said Jennie, stolidly.  “I helped set it, with him pretending to be all worked up, for the doctor to see.  He got rid of me all right.  He’s got one of his spies there now, a Bolshevik like himself.  You can ask the neighbors.”