but most tenderly loved, he was suddenly cast adrift like the hulk of an old battleship broken from its moorings, with nothing but solitude and darkness closing in upon his latter days.  Then he thought of the girl,—­his wife’s child—­ the child too of his college chum and dearest friend,—­he saw, impressed like a picture on the cells of his brain, her fair young face, pathetic eyes and sweet intelligence of expression,—­he remembered how modestly she wore her sudden fame, as a child might wear a wild flower,—­and, placed by her parentage in a difficulty for which she was not responsible, she must have suffered considerable pain and sorrow.

“I will go and see her to-morrow,” he said to himself—­“It will be better for her to know that I have heard all her sad little history—­then—­if she ever wants a friend she can come to me without fear.  Ah!—­if only she were my daughter!”

He sighed,—­his handsome old head drooped,—­he had longed for children and the boon had been denied.

“If she were my daughter,” he repeated, slowly—­“I should be a proud man instead of a sorrowful one!”

He turned off the lights in the library and went upstairs to his bedroom.  Outside his wife’s door he paused a moment, thinking he heard a sound,—­but all was silent.  Imagining that he probably would not sleep he placed a book near his bedside—­but nature was kind to his age and temperament, and after about an hour of wakefulness and sad perplexity, all ruffling care was gradually smoothed away from his mind, and he fell into a deep and dreamless slumber.

Meanwhile Lady Blythe had been disrobed by a drowsy maid whom she sharply reproached for being sleepy when she ought to have been wide awake, though it was long past midnight,—­and dismissing the girl at last, she sat alone before her mirror, thinking with some pettishness of the interview she had just had with her husband.

“Old fool!” she soliloquised—­“He ought to know better than to play the tragic-sentimental with me at his time of life!  I thought he would accept the situation reasonably and help me to tackle it.  Of course it will be simply abominable if I am to meet that girl at every big society function—­I don’t know what I shall do about it!  Why didn’t she stay in her old farm-house!—­who could ever have imagined her becoming famous!  I shall go abroad, I think—­ that will be the best thing to do.  If Blythe leaves me as he threatens, I shall certainly not stay here by myself to face the music!  Besides, who knows?—­the girl herself may ‘round’ on me when her head gets a little more swelled with success.  Such a horrid bore!—­I wish I had never seen Pierce Armitage!”

Even as she thought of him the vision came back to her of the handsome face and passionate eyes of her former lover,—­again she saw the romantic little village by the sea where they had dwelt together as in another Eden,—­she remembered how he would hurry up from the shore bringing with him the sketch he had been working at, eager for her eyes to look at it, thrilling at her praise, and pouring out upon her such tender words and caresses such as she had never known since those wild and ardent days!  A slight shiver ran through her—­something like a pang of remorse stung her hardened spirit.