ared the disapproval of this man?" she inwardly
queried, as she cast him a confiding look which pleased him greatly, as
his tone now showed.

"When I lost my daughter, I lost everything," he declared, as they
walked slowly up the road. "Nothing excites my interest, save that which
once excited hers. I am told that the deepest interest of her life lay
here. I am also told that it was an interest quite worthy of her. I
expect to find it so. I hope with all my heart to find it so, and that
is why I have come to this town and expect to linger till Mr. Brotherson
has recovered sufficiently to see me. I hope that this will be agreeable
to him. I hope that I am not presuming too much in cherishing these
expectations."

Doris turned her candid eyes upon him.

"I cannot tell; I do not know," said she. "Nobody knows, not even the
doctor, what effect the news we so dread to give him will have upon Mr.
Brotherson. You will have to wait--we all shall have to wait the results
of that revelation. It cannot be kept from him much longer. When I
return, I shall shrink from his first look, in the fear of seeing it
betray this dreadful knowledge. Yet I have a faithful woman there to
keep every one out of his room."

"You have had much to carry for one so young," was Mr. Challoner's
sympathetic remark. "You must let me help you when that awful moment
comes. I am at the hotel and shall stay there till Mr. Brotherson is
pronounced quite well. I have no other duty now in life but to sustain
him through his trouble and then, with what aid he can give, search
out and find the cause of my daughter's death which I will never admit
without the fullest proof, to have been one of suicide."

Doris trembled.

"It was not suicide," she declared, vehemently. "I have always felt sure
that it was not; but to-day I KNOW."

Her hand fell clenched on her breast and her eyes gleamed strangely. Mr.
Challoner was himself greatly startled. What had happened--what could
have happened since yesterday that she should emphasise that now?

"I've not told any one," she went on, as he stopped short in the road,
in his anxiety to understand her. "But I will tell you. Only, not here,
not with all these people driving past; most of whom know me. Come to
the house later--this evening, after Mr. Brotherson's room is closed for
the night. I have a little sitting-room on the other side of the hall
where we can talk without being heard. Would you object to doing that?