But there remained the telling of the lie.  How he wished that Emily were not at home!  To lie before Emily, that was the hardest part of his self-imposed task.  He could not respect his wife, but before Emily, since her earliest companionship with him, he had watched his words scrupulously; as a little girl she had so impressed him with the purity of her heart that his love for her had been the nearest approach he ever knew to the spirit of worship; and since her attainment of mental and moral independence, his reverence for’ her had not been unmixed with awe.  When her eyes met his, he felt the presence of a nature indefinitely nobler than his own; not seldom he marvelled in his dim way that such a one called him father.  Could he ever after this day approach her with the old confidence?  Nay, he feared her.  His belief in her insight was almost a superstition.  Would she not read the falsehood upon his face?

Strange state of mind; at one and the same time he wished that he had thought of Emily sooner, and was glad that he had not.  That weight in his pocket was after all a joyous one, and to have been conscious of Emily as he now was, might—­would—­have made him by so much a poorer man.

She, as usual, was at the door to meet him, her face even ladder than its wont, for this morning there had been at the post-office a letter from Switzerland.  How she loved that old name of Helvetia, printed on the stamps!  Wilfrid wrote with ever fuller assurance that his father’s mind was growing well-disposed, and Emily knew that he would not tell her other than the honest truth.  For Wilfrid’s scrupulous honesty she would have vouched as—­for her father’s.

‘You look dreadfully worn out,’ she said, as Hood bent his head in entering.

‘I am, dear.  I have been to Hebsworth, among other things.’

‘Then I hope you had dinner there?’

He laughed.

‘I should think I had!’

It was one of Mrs. Hood’s bad days; she refused to leave the kitchen.  Emily had tried to cheer her during the afternoon, but in vain.  There had been a misunderstanding with the next-door neighbour, that lady having expressed herself rather decidedly with regard to an incursion made into her premises by the Hoods’ cat.

‘She speaks to me as if I was a mere working-woman,’ Mrs. Hood exclaimed, when Emily endeavoured to soothe her.  ’Well, and what else am I, indeed?  There was a time when no one would have ventured to speak so.’

‘Mother, how can you be troubled by what such a woman says?’

‘Yes, I know I am in the wrong, Emily; you always make me see that.’

So Emily had retreated to the upper room, and Mrs. Hood, resenting neglect more even than contradiction, was resolved to sit in the kitchen till bedtime.

Hood was glad when he heard of this.

‘If you’ll pour out my tea, Emily,’ he said in an undertone, ’I’ll go and speak to mother for a few moments.  I have news that will please her.’