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 him, and, keeping his eyes from the region of the room where Denham stood, he shepherded her in front of him back to the study. When Katharine was inside the room he shut the study door carefully behind him as if to secure himself from something that he disliked.

“Now, Katharine,” he said, taking up his stand in front of the fire, “you will, perhaps, have the kindness to explain—” She remained silent. “What inferences do you expect me to draw?” he said sharply. “You tell me that you are not engaged to Rodney; I see you on what appear to be extremely intimate terms with another—with Ralph Denham. What am I to conclude? Are you,” he added, as she still said nothing, “engaged to Ralph Denham?”

“No,” she replied.

His sense of relief was great; he had been certain that her answer would have confirmed his suspicions, but that anxtety being set at rest, he was the more conscious of annoyance with her for her behaviour.

“Then all I can say is that you’ve very strange ideas of the proper way to behave. People have drawn certain conclusions, nor am I surprised. The more I think of it the more inexplicable I find it,” he went on, his anger rising as he spoke. “Why am I left in ignorance of what is going on in my own house? Why am I left to hear of these events for the first time from my sister? Most disagreeable—most upsetting. How I’m to explain to your Uncle Francis—but I wash my hands of it. Cassandra goes to-morrow. I forbid Rodney the house. As for the other young man, the sooner he makes himself scarce the better. After placing the most implicit trust in you, Katharine” He broke off, disquieted by the ominous silence with which his words were received, and looked at his daughter with the curious doubt as to her state of mind which he had felt before, for the first time, this evening. He perceived once more that she was not