Hildegarde on the step below him. She laid her cheek against his knee. "Love me, Daddy?"
"You know I do."
"Sometimes . . . I like to think when we are together that mother . . . is with us."
His hand was on her hair. "Hildegarde . . . I want you to know that she was the dearest. . . . Yet I never made her happy."
Hildegarde looked up at him. "You've made me happy."
"Have I? I am afraid I wasn't born to make people happy. And some day you'll leave me."
"What do you mean?"
"You'll marry. All girls do."
Out of the content of the moment she laughed. "Why look so far ahead?"
A cloud darkened the moon, but the dead gold of it still illumined the scene, and in that dead-gold light they saw a figure moving among the trees.
"It's Winslow," Carew said. "He must have come out of the side door."
Neither of them called, although Neale in the stillness could easily have heard their voices. They watched him go in and out, threading his way along the sable trunks until he was lost to view.
"He has some important matters pending," Carew remarked. "He says exercise makes his mind work. The thing he is interested in just now interests me. If it goes through our fortunes are assured. If it doesn't, we are done for."
"What do you mean by 'done for,' Daddy?"
"It's our last hope. I've practically no assets. I'd have to sell the house."
