With his head bent down — as if he were facing some keen-blowing wind — and yet there was not a breath of air stirring — Mr. Gibson went swiftly to his own home. He rang at the door-bell; an unusual proceeding on his part. Maria opened the door. ‘Go and tell Miss Molly she is wanted in the dining-room. Don’t say who it is that wants her.’ There was something in Mr. Gibson’s manner that made Maria obey him to the letter, in spite of Molly’s surprised question —

‘Wants me? Who is it, Maria?’

Mr. Gibson went into the dining-room, and shut the door, for an instant’s solitude. He went up to the chimney-piece, took hold of it, and laid his head on his hands, and tried to still the beating of his heart.

The door opened. He knew that Molly stood there before he heard her tone of astonishment.

‘Papa!’

‘Hush!’ said he, turning round sharply. ‘Shut the door. Come here.’

She came to him, wondering what was amiss. Her thoughts went to the Hamleys immediately. ‘Is it Osborne?’ she asked, breathless. If Mr Gibson had not been too much agitated to judge calmly, he might have deduced comfort from these three words.

But instead of allowing himself to seek for comfort from collateral evidence, he said — ‘Molly, what is this I hear? That you have been keeping up a clandestine intercourse with Mr. Preston — meeting him in out-of-the-way places; exchanging letters with him in a stealthy way.’

Though he had professed to disbelieve all this, and did disbelieve it at the bottom of his soul, his voice was hard and stern, his face was white and grim, and his eyes fixed Molly’s with the terrible keenness of their research. Molly trembled all over; but she did not attempt to evade his penetration. If she was silent for a moment, it was because she was rapidly reviewing her relation with regard to Cynthia in this matter. It was but a moment’s pause of silence; but it seemed long minutes to one who was craving for a burst of indignant denial. He had taken hold of her two arms just above her wrists, as she had first advanced towards him; he was unconscious of this action; but, as his impatience for her words grew upon him, he grasped her more and more tightly in his vice-like hands, till she made a little involuntary sound of pain. And then he let go; and she looked at her soft bruised flesh, with tears gathering fast to her eyes to think that he, her father, should have hurt her so. At the instant it appeared to her stranger that he should inflict bodily pain upon his child, than that he should have heard the truth — even in an exaggerated form. With a childish gesture she held out her arm to him; but if she expected pity, she received none.

‘Pooh!’ said he, as he just glanced at the mark, ‘that is nothing — nothing. Answer my question. Have you — have you met that man in private?’

‘Yes, papa, I have; but I don’t think it was wrong.’

He sate down now. ‘Wrong!’ he echoed, bitterly. ‘Not ‘wrong? Well! I must bear it somehow. Your mother is dead. That’s one comfort. It is true, then, is it? Why, I did not believe it — not I. I laughed in my sleeve at their credulity; and I was the dupe all the time!’

‘Papa, I cannot tell you all. It is not my secret, or you should know it directly. Indeed, you will be sorry some time — I have never deceived you yet, have I?’ trying to take one of his hands; but he kept them tightly in his pockets, his eyes fixed on the pattern of the carpet before him. ‘Papa!’ said she, pleading again, ‘have I ever deceived you?’

‘How can I tell? I hear of this from the town’s talk. I don’t know what next may come out!’

‘The town’s talk,’ said Molly in dismay. ‘What business is it of theirs?’

‘Every one makes it their business to cast dirt on a girl’s name who has disregarded the commonest rules of modesty and propriety.’

‘Papa, you are very hard. “Disregarded modesty.” I will tell you exactly what I have done. I met Mr. Preston once — that evening when you put me down to walk over Croston Heath — and there was another person with him. I met him a second time — and that time by appointment — nobody but our two selves — in the Towers’ Park. That is all. Papa, you must trust me. I cannot explain more. You must trust me indeed.’

He could not help relenting at her words; there was such truth in the tone in which they were spoken. But he neither spoke nor stirred for a minute or two. Then he raised his eyes to hers for the first time since she had acknowledged the external truth of what he charged her with. Her face was very white, but it bore the impress of the final sincerity of death, when the true expression prevails without the poor disguises of time.

‘The letters?’ he said — but almost as if he were ashamed to question that countenance any further.

‘I gave him one letter — of which I did not write a word — which, in fact, I believe to have been merely an envelope, without any writing whatever inside. The giving that letter — the two interviews I have named — make all the private intercourse I have had with Mr. Preston. Oh! papa, what have they been saying that has grieved — shocked you so much?’

‘Never mind. As the world goes, what you say you have done, Molly, is ground enough. You must tell me all. I must be able to refute these rumours point by point.’

‘How are they to be refuted; when you say that the truth which I have acknowledged is ground enough for what people are saying?’

‘You say you were not acting for yourself, but for another. If you tell me who the other was — if you tell me everything out fully, I will do my utmost to screen her — for of course I guess it was Cynthia — while I am exonerating you.’

‘No, papa!’ said Molly, after some little consideration; ‘I have told you all I can tell; all that concerns myself; and I have promised not to say one word more.’

‘Then your character will be impugned. It must be, unless the fullest explanation of these secret meetings is given. I have a great mind to force the whole truth out of Preston himself!’

‘Papa! once again I beg you to trust me. If you ask Mr. Preston you will very likely hear the whole truth; but that is just what I have been trying so hard to conceal, for it will only make several people very unhappy if it is known, and the whole affair is over and done with now.’

‘Not your share in it. Miss Browning sent for me this evening to tell me how people were talking about you. She implied that it was a complete loss of your good name. You do not know, Molly, how slight a thing may blacken a girl’s reputation for life. I had hard work to stand all she said, even though I did not believe a word of it at the time. And now you have told me that much of it is true.’

‘But I think you are a brave man, papa. And you believe me, don’t you? We shall outlive these rumours, never fear.’

‘You don’t know the power of ill-natured tongues, child,’ said he.

‘Oh, now you’ve called me “child” again I don’t care for anything. Dear, dear papa, I’m sure it is best and wisest to take no notice of these speeches. After all they may not mean them ill-naturedly. I am sure Miss Browning would not. By-and-by they’ll quite forget how much they made out of so little — and even if they don’t, you would not have me break my solemn word, would you?’

‘Perhaps not. But I cannot easily forgive the person who, by practising on your generosity, led you into this scrape. You are very young, and look upon these things as merely temporary evils. I have more experience.’

‘Still, I don’t see what I can do now, papa. Perhaps I’ve been foolish; but what I did, I did of my ownself. It was not suggested to me. And I’m sure it was not wrong in morals, whatever it might be in judgment. As I said, it is all over now; what I did ended the affair, I am thankful to say; and it was with that object I did it. If people choose to talk about me, I must submit; and so must you, dear papa.’

‘Does your mother — does Mrs. Gibson — know anything about it?’ asked he with sudden anxiety.

‘No; not a bit; not a word. Pray don’t name it to her. That might lead to more mischief than anything else. I have really told you everything I am at liberty to tell.’

It was a great relief to Mr. Gibson to find that his sudden fear that his wife might have been privy to it all was ill-founded; he had been seized by a sudden dread that she, whom he had chosen to marry in order to have a protectress and guide for his daughter, had been cognizant of this ill-advised adventure with Mr. Preston; nay, more, that she might even have instigated it to save her own child; for that Cynthia was somehow or other at the bottom of it all he had no doubt whatever. But now, at any rate, Mrs. Gibson had not been playing a treacherous part; that was all the comfort he could extract out of Molly’s mysterious admission, that much mischief might result from Mrs. Gibson’s knowing anything about these meetings with Mr. Preston.

‘Then, what is to be done?’ said he. ‘These reports are abroad — am I to do nothing to contradict them? Am I to go about smiling and content with all this talk about you, passing from one idle gossip to another?’

‘I’m afraid so. I’m very sorry, for I never meant you to have known anything about it, and I can see now how it must distress you. But surely when nothing more happens, and nothing comes of what has happened, the wonder and the gossip must die away? I know you believe every word I have said, and that you trust me, papa. Please, for my sake, be patient with all this gossip and cackle.’

‘It will try me hard, Molly,’ said he.

‘For my sake, papa!’

‘I don’t see what else I can do,’ replied he moodily, ‘unless I get hold of Preston.’

‘That would be the worst of all. That would make a talk. And, after all, perhaps he was not so very much to blame. Yes! he was. But he behaved well to me as far as that goes,’ said she, suddenly recollecting his speech when Mr. Sheepshanks came up in the Towers’ Park — ‘Don’t stir, you have done nothing to be ashamed of.’

‘That is true. A quarrel between men which drags a woman’s name into notice is to............