to be dreaded from her father?

The moment I mentioned her father, she shrank away from me and burst
into a violent fit of crying.

"Don't speak of it again!" she said in a broken voice. "I mustn't--you
mustn't--ah, don't, don't say a word more about it! I'm not distressed
with you--it is not your fault. Don't say anything--leave me quiet for a
minute. I shall soon be better it you leave me quiet."

She dried her eyes directly, with a shiver as if it was cold, and took
my arm. I led her back to the house-gate; and then, feeling that I
could not go in to lunch as usual, after what had happened, said I would
return to the fishing-place.

"Shall I come to dinner this evening?" I asked, as I rang the gate-bell
for her.

"Oh, yes--yes!--do come, or he--"

The mysterious man-servant opened the door, and we parted before she
could say the next words.

CHAPTER VIII.

I WENT back to the fishing-place with a heavy heart, overcome by
mournful thoughts, for the first time in my life. It was plain that
she did not dislike me, and equally plain that there was some obstacle
connected with her father, which forbade her to listen to my offer of
marriage. From the time when she had accidentally looked toward the
red-brick house, something in her manner which it is quite impossible
to describe, had suggested to my mind that this obstacle was not only
something she could not mention, but something that she was partly
ashamed of, partly afraid of, and partly doubtful about. What could it
be? How had she first known it? In what way was her father connected
with it?

In the course of our walks she had told me nothing about herself which
was not perfectly simple and unsuggestive.

Her childhood had been passed in England. After that, she had lived with
her father and mother at Paris, where the doctor had many friends--for
all of whom she remembered feeling more or less dislike, without being
able to tell why. They had then come to England, and had lived in
lodgings in London. For a time they had been miserably poor. But, after
her mother's death--a sudden death from heart disease--there had come a
change in their affairs, which she was quite unable to explain. They had
removed to their present abode, to give the doctor full accommodation
for the carrying on of his scientific pursuits. He often had occasion to
go to London; but never took her with him. The only woman at home
now, beside herself, was an elderly person, who ac