d, under her breath.

"Stoop down, my dear. I must kiss your forehead--there! Now bring up a
chair to my side. You seem frightened--alarmed. Have you ill news for
me?"

"I have no news," she answered, gradually recovering herself.

"The gaieties of London, I fear," he protested gently, "have proved a
little unsettling."

"There were no gaieties for me," the girl replied bitterly. "Mrs.
Sargent obeyed your orders very faithfully. I was not allowed to move
out except with her."

"My dear child, you would not go about London unchaperoned!"

"There is a difference," she retorted, "between a chaperon and a
jailer."

Mr. Fentolin sighed. He shook his head slowly. He seemed pained.

"I am not sure that you repay my care as it deserves, Esther," he
declared. "There is something in your deportment which disappoints me.
Never mind, your brother has made some atonement. I entrusted him with
a little mission in which I am glad to say that he has been brilliantly
successful."

"I cannot say that I am glad to hear it," Esther replied quietly.

Mr. Fentolin sat back in his chair. His long fingers played nervously
together, he looked at her gravely.

"My dear child," he exclaimed, in a tone of pained surprise, "your
attitude distresses me!"

"I cannot help it. I have told you what I think about Gerald and the
life he is compelled to live here. I don't mind so much for myself, but
for him I think it is abominable."

"The same as ever," Mr. Fentolin sighed. "I fear that this little change
has done you no good, dear niece."

"Change!" she echoed. "It was only a change of prisons."

Mr. Fentolin shook his head slowly--a distressful gesture. Yet all the
time he had somehow the air of a man secretly gratified.

"You are beginning to depress me," he announced. "I think that you can
go away. No, stop for just one moment. Stand there in the light. Dear
me, how unfortunate! Who would have thought that so beautiful a mother
could have so plain a daughter!"

She stood quite still before him, her hands crossed in front of her,
something of the look of the nun from whom the power of suffering has
gone in her still, cold face and steadfast eyes.

"Not a touch of colour," he continued meditatively, "a figure straight
as my walking-stick. What a pity! And all the taste, nowadays, they tell
me, is in the other direction. The lank damsels have gone completely
out. We buried them with Oscar Wilde. Run along, my dear child. You do
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