She went up to Dahlia, sick with a sudden fright lest evil had come to Robert, seeing that his enemy was here; but that was swept from her by Dahlia’s aspect.

“He is in the house,” Dahlia said; and asked, “Was there no letter—­no letter; none, this morning?”

Rhoda clasped her in her arms, seeking to check the convulsions of her trembling.

“No letter! no letter! none? not any?  Oh! no letter for me!”

The strange varying tones of musical interjection and interrogation were pitiful to hear.

“Did you look for a letter?” said Rhoda, despising herself for so speaking.

“He is in the house!  Where is my letter?”

“What was it you hoped? what was it you expected, darling?”

Dahlia moaned:  “I don’t know.  I’m blind.  I was told to hope.  Yesterday I had my letter, and it told me to hope.  He is in the house!”

“Oh, my dear, my love!” cried Rhoda; “come down a minute.  See him.  It is father’s wish.  Come only for a minute.  Come, to gain time, if there is hope.”

“But there was no letter for me this morning, Rhoda.  I can’t hope.  I am lost.  He is in the house!”

“Dearest, there was a letter,” said Rhoda, doubting that she did well in revealing it.

Dahlia put out her hands dumb for the letter.

“Father opened it, and read it, and keeps it,” said Rhoda, clinging tight to the stricken form.

“Then, he is against me?  Oh, my letter!” Dahlia wrung her hands.

While they were speaking, their father’s voice was heard below calling for Dahlia to descend.  He came thrice to the foot of the stairs, and shouted for her.

The third time he uttered a threat that sprang an answer from her bosom in shrieks.

Rhoda went out on the landing and said softly, “Come up to her, father.”

After a little hesitation, he ascended the stairs.

“Why, girl, I only ask you to come down and see your husband,” he remarked with an attempt at kindliness of tone.  “What’s the harm, then?  Come and see him; that’s all; come and see him.”

Dahlia was shrinking out of her father’s sight as he stood in the doorway.  “Say,” she communicated to Rhoda, “say, I want my letter.”

“Come!” William Fleming grew impatient.

“Let her have her letter, father,” said Rhoda.  “You have no right to withhold it.”

“That letter, my girl” (he touched Rhoda’s shoulder as to satisfy her that he was not angry), “that letter’s where it ought to be.  I’ve puzzled out the meaning of it.  That letter’s in her husband’s possession.”

Dahlia, with her ears stretching for all that might be uttered, heard this.  Passing round the door, she fronted her father.

“My letter gone to him!” she cried.  “Shameful old man!  Can you look on me?  Father, could you give it?  I’m a dead woman.”

She smote her bosom, stumbling backward upon Rhoda’s arm.