Page:Between Two Loves.djvu/46

Rh and the pale gold of her loosened hair. She flung down the novel she was reading at his entrance, and with a cry of joy went to meet him.

"Father! father!"

The dear, simple words flung the inmost door of his heart open to her. He took her in his arms and kissed her. "My lass, my lass, I am glad to see thee." She drew the low chair in which she had been sitting beside him, and took his large, brown hand between her white, jewelled ones, and stroked and fondled it Aske was out riding, and Burley determined to take the opportunity and talk wisely to his child. He would advise her to do what was kind and right, but at the same time he knew that, right or wrong, he would defend her to the last shilling of his money and the last hour of his life.

But who can reason with a high-tempered woman into whom the spirit of wilful contradiction has entered? The quarrel between Eleanor and her husband had come to a struggle for supremacy, and Eleanor was determined not to submit. And alas, the tenacity with which a woman will hold a post of this kind is amazing; there is no driving her from it, no compromise,