The next day her aunt came again and expostulated, and was just saying it was “an unheard-of thing” for a girl to leave her home as Ann Veronica had done, when her father arrived, and was shown in by the pleasant-faced landlady.

Her father had determined on a new line. He put down his hat and umbrella, rested his hands on his hips, and regarded Ann Veronica firmly.

“Now,” he said, quietly, “it’s time we stopped this nonsense.”

Ann Veronica was about to reply, when he went on, with a still more deadly quiet: “I am not here to bandy words with you. Let us have no more of this humbug. You are to come home.”

“I thought I explained—”

“I don’t think you can have heard me,” said her father; “I have told you to come home.”

“I thought I explained—”

“Come home!”

Ann Veronica shrugged her shoulders.

“Very well,” said her father.

“I think this ends the business,” he said, turning to his sister.

“It’s not for us to supplicate any more. She must learn wisdom—as God pleases.”

“But, my dear Peter!” said Miss Stanley.

“No,” said her brother, conclusively, “it’s not for a parent to go on persuading a child.”

Miss Stanley rose and regarded Ann Veronica fixedly. The girl stood with her hands behind her back, sulky, resolute, and intelligent, a strand of her black hair over one eye and looking more than usually delicate-featured, and more than ever like an obdurate child.

“She doesn’t know.”

“She does.”

“I can’t imagine what makes you fly out against everything like this,” said Miss Stanley to her niece.

“What is the good of talking?” said her brother. “She must go her own way. A man’s children nowadays are not his own. That’s the fact of the matter. Their minds are turned against him.... Rubbishy novels and pernicious rascals. We can’t even protect them from themselves.”

An immense gulf seemed to open between father and daughter as he said these words.

“I don’t see,” gasped Ann Veronica, “why parents and children... shouldn’t be friends.”

“Friends!” said her father. “When we see you going through disobedience to the devil! Come, Molly, she must go her own way. I’ve tried to use my authority. And she defies me. What more is there to be said? She defies me!”

It was extraordinary. Ann Veronica felt suddenly an effect of tremendous pathos; she would have given anything to have been able to frame and make some appeal, some utterance that should bridge this bottomless chasm that had opened between her and her father, and she could find nothing whatever to say that was in the least sincere and appealing.

“Father,” she cried, “I have to live!”

He misunderstood her. “That,” he said, grimly, with his hand on the door-handle, “must be your own affair, unless you choose to live at Morningside Park.”

Miss Stanley turned to her. “Vee,” she said, “come home. Before it is too late.”

“Come, Molly,” said Mr. Stanley, at the door.

“Vee!” said Miss Stanley, “you hear what your father says!”

Miss Stanley struggled with emotion. She made a curious movement toward her niece, then suddenly, convulsively, she dabbed down something lumpy on the table and turned to follow her brother. Ann Veronica stared for a moment in amazement at this dark-green object that clashed as it was put down. It was a purse. She made a step forward. “Aunt!” she said, “I can’t—”

Then she caught a wild appeal in her aunt’s blue eye, halted, and the door clicked upon them.

There was a pause, and then the front door slammed....

Ann Veronica realized that she was alone with the world. And this time the departure had a tremendous effect of finality. She had to resist an impulse of sheer terror, to run out after them and give in.

“Gods,” she said, at last, “I’ve done it this time!”

“Well!” She took up the neat morocco purse, opened it, and examined the contents.

It contained three sovereigns, six and fourpence, two postage stamps, a small key, and her aunt’s return half ticket to Morningside Park.