man outside in the great world. Dimly she realised that some win
out--and some go under. He had failed. And it seemed to her that
on her had fallen his debt. She must take the place he had
forfeited in the universe, she must succeed where he had failed.
Her strength must rise out of his weakness. His honour was hers to
re-establish, given the opportunity. And the opportunity had been
given. She had waited for the coming of her unknown guardian with
a feeling of dull revolt against the degradation of being handed
over inexorably to the disposal and charity of a stranger. Though
she had not been told she had guessed, years ago, that money for
her maintenance was wanting. The kindly deception of the Mother
Superior had been ineffectual. Gillian knew she was a pauper. The
charity of the convent school had been hard to bear. The charity
of a stranger would be harder. She writhed with the humiliation of
it. She was nineteen--for two years she must go and be and endure
at the whim of an unknown. And what would he be like, this man
into whose hands her father had thrust her! What choice would John
Locke be capable of making--what love had he shown during these
last years that he should choose carefully and well? From among
what class of man, of the society into which he had sunk, would he
select one to give his daughter? He had written of "my old friend,
Barry Craven." The name conveyed nothing--the adjective admitted
of two interpretations. Which? Day and night she was haunted with
visions of old men--recollections of faces seen when driving with
her friends or visiting their homes; old men who had interested
her, old men from whom she had instinctively shrunk. What type of
man was it that was coming for her? There were times when her
courage deserted her and the constantly recurring question made
her nearly mad with fear. She was like a wild creature caught in a
trap, listening to the feet of the keeper nearing--nearing. She