“Have I lost you?”

“I belong to my father,” said she, contracting and disengaging her feminine garments to step after him in the cold silver-spotted dusk of the winter woods.

Van Diemen came out on a fish-pond.

“Here you are, young ones!” he said to the pair.  “This way, Fellowman.  I’m clearer now, and it’s my belief I’ve been talking nonsense.  I’m puffed up with money, and have n’t the heart I once had.  I say, Fellowman, Fellowbird, Hubbard—­what’s your right name?—­fancy an old carp fished out of that pond and flung into the sea.  That’s exile!  And if the girl don’t mind, what does it matter?”

“Mr. Herbert Fellingham, I think, would like to go to bed, papa,” said Annette.

“Miss Smith must be getting cold,” Fellingham hinted.

“Bounce away indoors,” replied Van Diemen, and he led them like a bull.

Annette was disinclined to leave them together in the smoking-room, and under the pretext of wishing to see her father to bed she remained with them, though there was a novel directness and heat of tone in Herbert that alarmed her, and with reason.  He divined in hideous outlines what had happened.  He was no longer figuring on easy ice, but desperate at the prospect of a loss to himself, and a fate for Annette, that tossed him from repulsion to incredulity, and so back.

Van Diemen begged him to light his pipe.

“I’m off to London to-morrow,” said Fellingham.  “I don’t want to go, for very particular reasons; I may be of more use there.  I have a cousin who’s a General officer in the army, and if I have your permission—­you see, anything’s better, as it seems to me, than that you should depend for peace and comfort on one man’s tongue not wagging, especially when he is not the best of tempers if I have your permission—­without mentioning names, of course—­I’ll consult him.”

There was a dead silence.

“You know you may trust me, sir.  I love your daughter with all my heart.  Your honour and your interests are mine.”

Van Diemen struggled for composure.

“Netty, what have you been at?” he said.

“It is untrue, papa!” she answered the unworded accusation.

“Annette has told me nothing, sir.  I have heard it.  You must brace your mind to the fact that it is known.  What is known to Mr. Tinman is pretty sure to be known generally at the next disagreement.”

“That scoundrel Mart!” Van Diemen muttered.

“I am positive Mr. Tinman did not speak of you, papa,” said Annette, and turned her eyes from the half-paralyzed figure of her father on Herbert to put him to proof.

“No, but he made himself heard when it was being discussed.  At any rate, it’s known; and the thing to do is to meet it.”

“I’m off.  I’ll not stop a day.  I’d rather live on the Continent,” said Van Diemen, shaking himself, as to prepare for the step into that desert.