‘I have the same feeling in truth, father,’ Annabel said, ’and—­I feel nothing more than that.’

‘Then let it rest, dear.  I certainly have no desire to lose you.’

So much between them.  Thereafter, both spoke of Egremont, when at all, in an unconstrained way.  Annabel showed frank interest in all that concerned him, but, as far as Mr. Newthorpe could discern, nothing more than the interest of friendliness.  As the months went on, he discerned no change.  Her life was as cheerful and as steadily industrious as ever; nothing betrayed unsettlement of the thought.  If her father by chance entered the room where she studied, he found her bent over books, her face beautiful in calm zeal.

The first grave symptoms of illness in her father opened a new chapter of Annabel’s life.  It was time to lay aside books for a little; the fated scheme of her existence required at this point new experiences.  The student’s habit does not readily reconcile itself to demands for practical energy and endurance, and when the first strain of fear-stricken love was relaxed, Annabel fell for a few days into grievous weakness of despondency; summoned from her study to all the miseries of a sick-room, it was mere nervous force that failed her.  When her father had his relapse, she was able to face the demand upon her more sternly.  But the trial through which she was passing was a severe one.  With the invalid she could keep a bright face, and make her presence, as ever, a blessing to him.  Alone, she cared no longer for her books, nor for the beauty that was about her home.  You remember that passage in her letter to Egremont:  ’The world seems to me very dark, and life a dreadful penalty.’  She could have uttered much on that text to one from whom she had had no secret.

One day, when Mr. Newthorpe was again recovering strength, there came a letter from Mrs. Tyrrell which announced the date of Paula’s marriage.  Annabel received the letter to read.  As she was sitting with her father a little later, he said, with a return of his humorous mood: 

‘I wonder on what footing Egremont will be in the new household?’

‘I suppose,’ Annabel replied, ’his acquaintance with Mr. Dalmaine will continue to be of the slightest.’

He paused a little, then, quietly: 

‘I am glad of this marriage.’

Annabel said nothing.

‘It proves,’ he continued, ’that we did well in not thinking too gravely of a certain incident.’

Annabel led the conversation away.  She had singular thoughts on this subject.  Paula’s letter, first announcing the engagement, made mention of Egremont in a curious way; and it was at least a strange hap that Paula should be about to marry the man against whom Egremont had expressed such an antipathy.