Day after day Yule sat at his meals in sullen muteness; to his wife he scarcely spoke at all, and his conversation with Marian did not go beyond necessary questions and remarks on topics of business.
His face became so strange a colour that one would have thought him suffering from an attack of jaundice; bilious headaches exasperated his savage mood.

Mrs Yule knew from long experience how worse than useless it was for her to attempt consolation; in silence was her only safety.
Nor did Marian venture to speak directly of what had happened.

But one evening, when she had been engaged in the study and was now saying 'Good-night,' she laid her cheek against her father's, an unwonted caress which had a strange effect upon him.

The expression of sympathy caused his thoughts to reveal themselves as they never yet had done before his daughter.
'It might have been very different with me,' he exclaimed abruptly, as if they had already been conversing on the subject.

'When you think of my failures--and you must often do so now you are grown up and understand things--don't forget the obstacles that have been in my way.
I don't like you to look upon your father as a thickhead who couldn't be expected to succeed.