rdews. Howard was gentle with
them where Anthony was hard, but he did not understand, either. She
herself, of other blood, got along by making few demands, but the Cardew
women were as insistent in their demands as the men. Elinor, Lily--She
formed a sudden resolution, and getting up, dressed feverishly. She had
no plan in her mind, nothing but a desperate resolution to put Lily's
case before her grandfather, and to beg that she be brought home without
conditions.

She was frightened as she went up the stairs. Never before had she
permitted things to come to an issue between herself and Anthony. But
now it must be done. She knocked at the door.

Anthony Cardew opened it. The room was dark, save for one lamp burning
dimly on a great mahogany table, and Anthony's erect figure was little
more than a blur of black and white.

"I heard you walking about," she said breathlessly. "May I come in and
talk to you?"

"Come in," he said, with a sort of grave heaviness. "Shall I light the
other lamps?"

"Please don't."

"Will you sit down? No? Do you mind if I do? I am very tired. I suppose
it is about Lily?"

"Yes. I can't stand it any longer. I can't."

Sitting under the lamp she saw that he looked very old and very weary. A
tired little old man, almost a broken one.

"She won't come back?"

"Not under the conditions. But she must come back, father. To let her
stay on there, in that house, after last night--"

She had never called him "father" before. It seemed to touch him.

"You're a good woman, Grace," he said, still heavily. "We Cardews all
marry good women, but we don't know how to treat them. Even Howard--"
His voice trailed off. "No, she can't stay there," he said, after a
pause.

"But--I must tell you--she refuses to give up that man."

"You are a woman, Grace. You ought to know something about girls. Does
she actually care for him, or is it because he offers the liberty
she thinks we fail to give her? Or"--he smiled faintly--"is it Cardew
pig-headedness?"

Grace made a little gesture of despair.

"I don't know. She wanted to come home. She begged--it was dreadful."
Grace hesitated. "Even that couldn't be as bad as this, father," she
said. "We have all lived our own lives, you and Howard and myself, and
now we won't let her do it."

"And a pretty mess we have made of them!" His tone was grim. "No, I
can't say that we offer her any felicitous examples. But the fellow's
plan is transparent enough. He