e saw the photographs of her father step out of
their frames again, and growing very tall and spare, stalk to and fro.
Other figures joined them--those of women. Her poor dear Nannie, in the
plain quaker-grey cotton gown and black silk apron she used to wear, even
through the breathless hot-weather days, at the Sultan-i-bagh long ago.
And Henrietta Pereira, too, composed and delicately sprightly, arrayed in
full flounced muslins and fine laces with an exquisiteness of high
feminine grace and refinement which had enthralled her baby soul and
senses, and, which held her captive by their charm even yet. A handsome,
high-coloured full-breasted, Eurasian girl, whom she but dimly
recollected, was there as well. And with these another--carrying very
certainly no hint of things oriental about her--an English woman and of
the people, in dull homely clothing, grave of aspect and of bearing; yet
behind whose statuesque and sternly patient beauty a great flame seemed
to quiver, offering sharp enough contrast to the frail glintings of the
rain-washed sunset amid which she, just now, moved.

At sight of the last comer, Damaris started up, tense with wonder and
excitement, since she knew--somehow--this final visitant belonged not to
the past so much as to the present, that her power was unexhausted and
would go forward to the shaping of the coming years. Which knowledge drew
confirmation from what immediately followed. For, as by almost
imperceptible degrees the brightness faded in the west, the figures, so
mysteriously peopling the room, faded out also, until only the woman in
homely garments was left. By her side stood the charcoal drawing of Sir
Charles Verity from off the wall--or seemed to do so, for almost at
once, Damaris saw that dreaded interchange of personality again take
place. Saw the strongly marked features soften in outline, the face grow
bearded yet younger by full thirty years.

Both the woman and the young man looked searchingly at her; and in the
eyes of both she read the same question--what did she mean to do, what to
say, when her father, the object of her adoration, came home to her, came
back to Deadham Hard?

"I will do right," she cried out loud to them in answer, "Only trust me.
I am so tired and it is all so difficult to believe and to understand.
But I am trying to understand. I shall understand, if you will give me
time and not hurry me. And, when I understand, indeed, indeed, you may
trust me, whatever