ange; you--you are not glad to see my
father," she concluded, with a break in her voice.

"Esther," he said, "I tell you that I love you; if you love me, you know
what that means, and that all I wish is to see you happy. Do you think I
cannot enjoy your pleasure? Esther, I do. If I am uneasy, if I am
alarmed, if----. Oh, believe me, try and believe in me," he cried, giving
up argument with perhaps a happy inspiration.

But the girl's suspicions were aroused; and though she pressed the
matter no further (indeed, her father was already seen returning), it by
no means left her thoughts. At one moment she simply resented the
selfishness of a man who had obtruded his dark looks and passionate
language on her joy; for there is nothing that a woman can less easily
forgive than the language of a passion which, even if only for the
moment, she does not share. At another, she suspected him of jealousy
against her father; and for that, although she could see excuses for it,
she yet despised him. And at least, in one way or the other, here was
the dangerous beginning of a separation between two hearts. Esther found
herself at variance with her sweetest friend; she could no longer look
into his heart and find it written in the same language as her own; she
could no longer think of him as the sun which radiated happiness upon
her life, for she had turned to him once, and he had breathed upon her
black and chilly, radiated blackness and frost. To put the whole matter
in a word, she was beginning, although ever so slightly, to fall out of
love.

CHAPTER VI

THE PRODIGAL FATHER GOES ON FROM STRENGTH TO STRENGTH

We will not follow all the steps of the Admiral's return and
installation, but hurry forward towards the catastrophe, merely
chronicling by the way a few salient incidents, wherein we must rely
entirely upon the evidence of Richard, for Esther to this day has never
opened her mouth upon this trying passage of her life, and as for the
Admiral--well, that naval officer, although still alive, and now more
suitably installed in a seaport town where he has a telescope and a flag
in his front garden, is incapable of throwing the slightest gleam of
light upon the affair. Often and often has he remarked to the present
writer: "If I know what it was all about, sir, I'll be----" in short, be
what I hope he will not. And then he will look across at his daughter's
portrait, a photograph, shake his head with an amused appearance