nscious of it
with a sort of surprise. It has made the world, at times, seem more
decent. No one has so much as breathed to me. That has been a part of
the silence, the silence that surrounds him, the silence that, for the
world, has washed him out. He doesn't exist for people. And yet I'm as
sure as ever. In fact, though I know no more than I did then, I'm more
sure. And that," she wound up, "is what I sit here and tell you about
my own father. If you don't call it a proof of confidence I don't know
what will satisfy you."

"It satisfies me beautifully," Densher declared, "but it doesn't, my
dear child, very greatly enlighten me. You don't, you know, really tell
me anything. It's so vague that what am I to think but that you may
very well be mistaken? What has he done, if no one can name it?"

"He has done everything."

"Oh--everything! Everything's nothing."

"Well then," said Kate, "he has done some particular thing. It's
known--only, thank God, not to us. But it has been the end of him. You
could doubtless find out with a little trouble. You can ask about."

Densher for a moment said nothing; but the next moment he made it up.
"I wouldn't find out for the world, and I'd rather lose my tongue than
put a question."

"And yet it's a part of me," said Kate.

"A part of you?"

"My father's dishonour." Then she sounded for him, but more deeply than
ever yet, her note of proud, still pessimism. "How can such a thing as
that not be the great thing in one's life?"

She had to take from him again, on this, one of his long looks, and she
took it to its deepest, its headiest dregs. "I shall ask you, for the
great thing in your life," he said, "to depend on _me_ a little more."
After which, just hesitating, "Doesn't he belong to some club?" he
inquired.

She had a grave headshake. "He used to--to many."

"But he has dropped them?"

"They've dropped _him._ Of that I'm sure. It ought to do for you. I
offered him," the girl immediately continued--"and it was for that I
went to him--to come and be with him, make a home for him so far as is
possible. But he won't hear of it."

Densher took this in with visible, but generous, wonder. "You offered
him--'impossible' as you describe him to me--to live with him and share
his disadvantages?" The young man saw for the moment but the high
beauty of it. "You _are_ gallant!"

"Because it strikes you as being brave for him?" She wouldn't in the
least have this. "It wasn't cou