“But you are fit,” cried Noel passionately; “Daddy, you are fit!”

“I’m afraid not.  There is something wanting in me, I don’t know exactly what; but something very wanting.”

“There isn’t.  It’s only that you’re too good—­that’s why!”

Pierson shook his head.  “Don’t, Nollie!”

“I will,” cried Noel.  “You’re too gentle, and you’re too good.  You’re charitable, and you’re simple, and you believe in another world; that’s what’s the matter with you, Daddy.  Do you think they do, those people who want to chase us out?  They don’t even begin to believe, whatever they say or think.  I hate them, and sometimes I hate the Church; either it’s hard and narrow, or else it’s worldly.”  She stopped at the expression on her father’s face, the most strange look of pain, and horror, as if an unspoken treachery of his own had been dragged forth for his inspection.

“You’re talking wildly,” he said, but his lips were trembling.  “You mustn’t say things like that; they’re blasphemous and wicked.”

Noel bit her lips, sitting very stiff and still, against a high blue cushion.  Then she burst out again: 

“You’ve slaved for those people years and years, and you’ve had no pleasure and you’ve had no love; and they wouldn’t care that if you broke your heart.  They don’t care for anything, so long as it all seems proper.  Daddy, if you let them hurt you, I won’t forgive you!”

“And what if you hurt me now, Nollie?”

Noel pressed his hand against her warm cheek.

“Oh, no!  Oh, no!  I don’t—­I won’t.  Not again.  I’ve done that already.”

“Very well, my dear! then come home with me, and we’ll see what’s best to be done.  It can’t be settled by running away.”

Noel dropped his hand.  “No.  Twice I’ve done what you wanted, and it’s been a mistake.  If I hadn’t gone to Church on Sunday to please you, perhaps it would never have come to this.  You don’t see things, Daddy.  I could tell, though I was sitting right in front.  I knew what their faces were like, and what they were thinking.”

“One must do right, Nollie, and not mind.”

“Yes; but what is right?  It’s not right for me to hurt you, and I’m not going to.”

Pierson understood all at once that it was useless to try and move her.

“What are you going to do, then?”

“I suppose I shall go to Kestrel to-morrow.  Auntie will have me, I know; I shall talk to Leila.”

“Whatever you do, promise to let me know.”

Noel nodded.

“Daddy, you—­look awfully, awfully tired.  I’m going to give you some medicine.”  She went to a little three-cornered cupboard, and bent down.  Medicine!  The medicine he wanted was not for the body; knowledge of what his duty was—­that alone could heal him!

The loud popping of a cork roused him.  “What are you doing, Nollie?”

Noel rose with a flushed face, holding in one hand a glass of champagne, in the other a biscuit.