too, once had dwelt, but from which they were now eternally shut out.
She rose, "That's all, I think. I am going away from Round Hill. It was a mistake for me to come. I am not a Carew. I belong to my mother's kind and class. And I shall be happier among them."
Winslow, also on his feet, gave a last rapier-thrust: "If you go, you know what will happen. Louis will marry Ethel."
Hildegarde said, steadily, "He must do as he thinks best."
Her father was standing beside the lacquered cabinet, his frowning gaze bent upon the floor. "So you are going to desert me—as your mother did?"
"What else could she do?"
"She might have given me—another chance. But she was hard, as you are. She didn't understand me. You don't."
Once upon a time that break in his voice would have brought her to his feet. But not now. "I am not hard. I am simply trying to hold on to my self-respect."
"I thought you loved me."
"Love doesn't mean being weak because others ask it. It means being hard because one is right."
He flung up his head, "It means nothing of the kind. It means that you have made up your mind to leave me because you want to marry that clodhopper—Crispin."
Dead silence. Then Hildegarde blazed: "I am going back to do as I please. You can marry Ethel if you want to, and Neale can keep his mansion and his
