“Ellinor. The only daughter you ever had. The only child, as far as I know!”

The tranquil voice had a pleasant, matter-of-fact note. The last words were pointed merely by a sudden deep dimple at the corner of the lips that spoke them. But it was trouble, amounting to agitation, that here took possession of the father. He pushed his chair back from the table, rubbed his hands through his scant silver locks, tugged at his beard.

“You’ve come on ... on a visit, I suppose?” he said presently, with hesitation.

“I have come to stay some time—a long time, if I may.”

“But—Marvel, but your husband?”

“Dead.”

The dimple disappeared, but the voice was quite unaltered. She had not shifted her position.

14“Dead?” echoed Master Simon. His eyes travelled wonderingly from her black stuff gown—a widow’s gown indeed—to the head with its unwidow-like crown of hair; to the face so youthful, so curiously serene, so unmournful.

14

Her hands were lightly clasped under the pointed white chin. Here the father’s eyes rested; and from the chaos of his disturbed mind the last element of his surprise struggled to the surface and formulated itself into another question:

“Where is your wedding ring?”

“I took it off.”

Ellinor Marvel straightened her figure.

“Father,” she said, “we have always seen very little of each other, but I know you spend your life as a searcher after truth. Since we are now, as I hope, to live together, you will be glad to take notice from the first that I have at least one virtue: I am a truthful woman. It will save a good deal of explanation if I tell you now that, when the coach crossed the bridge this evening and I threw into the waters of the Avon the gold ring I had worn for ten miserable years, I said: ‘Thank God!’”

Simon Rickart took a stumbling turn up and down the room: his daughter stood watching him, motionless. Then he halted before her and broke into a 

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