But as she went down the stairs to the room in which she knew that he was waiting for her, there came over her a cold feeling of self-accusation,--almost of disgrace.

"I do not care," she said.

"I know that I'm right." She opened the door quickly, that there might be no further doubt, and found that she was alone with him.
"Miss Rowley," he said, "I am afraid you will think that I am persecuting you." "I have no right to think that," she answered.
"I'll tell you why I have come.

My dear father, who has always been my best friend, is very ill.

He is at Naples, and I must go to him.
He is very old, you know,--over eighty; and will never live to come back to England.