He was bareheaded now, and his short hair, smooth and grizzled, covered his energetic head like a close-fitting skull cap of iron-grey velvet.

He stood still before the table, his bony right hand resting upon it and holding both his long gloves.

The candlelight shone upward into his dark face, and gleamed yellow in his angry eyes.
Both the girls rose instinctively as their father entered; but they stood close together, their hands still linked as if to defend each other from a common enemy, though the hard man would have given his life for either of them at any moment since they had come into the world.
They knew it, and trembled.
"You have made me the laughing-stock of the court," he began slowly, and his voice shook with anger.

"What have you to say in your defence ?" He was speaking to Dolores, and she turned a little pale.

There was something so cruelly hard in his tone and bearing that she drew back a little, not exactly in bodily fear, but as a brave man may draw back a step when another suddenly draws a weapon upon him.