All night long it haunted her: whether thinking or dreaming of it, she could not tell.
Suddenly, she sat up with a stifled cry.

It seemed as if a flash of light had been turned upon her, almost blinding her.
Hilda! Why had she never thought of it?
The whole thing was so obvious.
"You ought not to think about yourself.

You ought to think only of him and of his work.

Nothing else matters." If she could say that to Joan, what might she not have said to her mother who, so clearly, she divined to be the incubus--the drag upon her father's career?
She could hear the child's dry, passionate tones--could see Mrs.Phillips's flabby cheeks grow white--the frightened, staring eyes.

Where her father was concerned the child had neither conscience nor compassion.