ut her fresh
childish look which suggested ignorance of evil had gone and could not
come back. Indeed, he wondered bow she had preserved it in her
father's house. This was not a matter he could touch upon; but
presently she referred to it.

"I imagine," she said shyly, "that on the evening when you came to my
rescue in London you were surprised to find me--so unprepared; so
incapable of dealing with the situation."

"That is true," Blake answered with some awkwardness. "A bachelor
dinner, you know, after a big race meeting at which we had backed
several winners! One has to make allowances."

Millicent smiled rather bitterly.

"You may guess that I had to make them often in those days; but it was
on the evening we were speaking of that my eyes were first opened, and
I was startled. But you must understand that it was not by my father's
wish that I came to London and stayed with him--until the end. He
urged me to go away; but his health had broken down and he had no one
else to care for him. When he was no longer able to get about,
everybody deserted him, and he felt it."

"I was truly sorry to hear of his death," Blake said. "Your father was
once a very good friend to me. But, if I may ask, how was it he let
you come to his flat?"

"I forced myself upon him. My mother died long ago, and her unmarried
sisters took care of me. They lived very simply in a small secluded
country house: two old-fashioned Evangelicals, gentle but austere,
studying small economies, giving all they could away. In winter we
embroidered for missionary bazaars; in summer we spent the days in a
quiet, walled garden. It was all very peaceful, but I grew restless;
and when I heard that my father's health was failing I felt that I must
go to him. My aunts were grieved and alarmed, but they said they dare
not hinder me if I thought it my duty."

Stirred by troubled memories and perhaps encouraged by the sympathy he
showed, she had spoken on impulse without reserve, and Blake listened
with pity. The girl, brought up, subject to wholesome Puritanical
influences, in such surroundings as she had described, must have
suffered a cruel shock when suddenly plunged into the society of the
rakes and gamblers who frequented her father's flat.

"Could you not have gone back when you were no longer needed?" he asked.

"No," she said; "it would not have been fair. I had changed since I
left my aunts. They were very sensitive, and I think t