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You may fancy how Esther quailed at this new feature of the meeting between her two idols.

And then, again, in a parenthesis:-

‘That,’ said Van Tromp, ‘was when I had to paint those dirty daubs of mine.’

And a little further on, laughingly said perhaps, but yet with an air of truth:-

‘I never had the slightest hesitation in sponging upon any human creature.’

Thereupon Dick got up.

‘I think perhaps,’ he said, ‘we had better all be thinking of going to bed.’ And he smiled with a feeble and deprecatory smile.

‘Not at all,’ cried the Admiral, ‘I know a trick worth two of that. Puss here,’ indicating his daughter, ‘shall go to bed; and you and I will keep it up till all’s blue.’

Thereupon Esther arose in sullen glory. She had sat and listened for two mortal hours while her idol defiled himself and sneered away his godhead. One by one, her illusions had departed. And now he wished to order her to bed in her own house! now he called her Puss! now, even as he uttered the words, toppling on his chair, he broke the stem of his tobacco-pipe in three! Never did the sheep turn upon her shearer with a more commanding front. Her voice was calm, her enunciation a little slow, but perfectly distinct, and she stood before him as she spoke, in the simplest and most maidenly attitude.

‘No,’ she said, ‘Mr. Naseby will have the goodness to go home at once, and you will go to bed.’

The broken fragments of pipe fell from the Admiral’s fingers; he seemed by his countenance to have lived too long in a world unworthy of him; but it is an odd circumstance, he attempted no reply, and sat thunderstruck, with open mouth.

Dick she motioned sharply towards the door, and he could only obey her. In the porch, finding she was close behind him, he ventured to pause and whisper, ‘You have done right.’

‘I have done as I pleased,’ she said. ‘Can he paint?’

‘Many people like his paintings,’ returned Dick, in stifled tones; ‘I never did; I never said I did,’ he added, fiercely defending himself before he was attacked.

‘I ask you if he can paint. I will not be put off. CAN he paint?’ she repeated.

‘No,’ said Dick.

‘Does he even like it?’

‘Not now, I believe.’

‘And he is drunk?’ – she leaned upon the word with hatred.

‘He has been drinking.’

‘Go,’ she said, and was turning to re-enter the house when another thought arrested her. ‘Meet me to-morrow morning at the stile,’ she said.

‘I will,’ replied Dick.

And then the door closed behind her, and Dick was alone in the darkness. There was still a chink of light above the sill, a warm, mild glow behind the window; the roof of the cottage and some of the banks and hazels were defined in denser darkness against the sky; but all else was formless, breathless, and noiseless like the pit. Dick remained as she had left him, standing squarely upon one foot and resting only on the toe of the other, and as he stood he listened with his soul. The sound of a chair pushed sharply over the floor startled his heart into his mouth; but the silence which had thus been disturbed settled back again at once upon the cottage and its vicinity. What took place during this interval is a secret from the world of men; but when it was over the voice of Esther spoke evenly and without interruption for perhaps half a minute, and as soon as that ceased heavy and uncertain footfalls crossed the parlour and mounted lurching up the stairs. The girl had tamed her father, Van Tromp had gone obediently to bed: so much was obvious to the watcher in the road. And yet he still waited, straining his ears, and with terror and sickness at his heart; for if Esther had followed her father, if she had even made one movement in this great conspiracy of men and nature to be still, Dick must have had instant knowledge of it from his station before the door; and if she had not moved, must she not have fainted? or might she not be dead?