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Richard was almost ready to feign such brutality as casual curiosity would dictate. 'It's pathological,' he muttered. 'Should be looked into.'

'They've always been so much to her, a refuge for her yearning, since I seem inanimate and averse. And—more now—— And then——' He could see that she was struggling with the obviousness of some feeling which was obscurely trying to make her refer to her father.

Richard Milne smiled bitterly at the conception of her as inanimate and averse, but he said:

'And your father still means more to her than she admits or knows, though she would cut her heart out to be rid of him——' There was a weary flippancy almost of cynicism in his utterance, as of one arming himself with brusqueness against too many torturing perplexities. And again there was an upward inflection here suddenly warily deceitful, though he would not openly question her; for while he knew the outward circumstances of this quandary, never yet had he known Ada Lethen to talk about it in the way he wished, as though she expected or even hoped that he could understand.