"
"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.
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