Returning to the room where he had sat alone before supper, he sank
heavily into the armchair he had previously occupied. The window was
still open, and the scent of roses stole in with every breath of
air,--a few stars sparkled in the sky, and a faint line of silver in
the east showed where the moon would shortly rise. He looked out in
dreamy silence, and for some minutes seemed too much absorbed in
thought to notice the presence of Innocent, who had seated herself at a
small table near him, on which she had set a lit candle, and was
quietly sewing. She had forgotten that she still wore the wreath of
wild roses,--the fragile flowers were drooping and dying in her hair,
and as she bent over her work and the candlelight illumined her
delicate profile, there was something almost sculptural in the shape of
the leaves as they encircled her brow, making her look like a young
Greek nymph or goddess brought to life out of the poetic dreams of the
elder world. She was troubled and anxious, but she tried not to let
this seem apparent. She knew from her life's experience of his ways and
whims that it was best to wait till the old man chose to speak, rather
than urge him into talk before he was ready or willing. She glanced up
from her sewing now and again and saw that he looked very pale and
worn, and she felt that he suffered. Her tender young heart ached with
longing to comfort him, yet she knew not what she should say. So she
sat quiet, as full of loving thoughts as a Madonna lily may be full of
the dew of Heaven, yet mute as the angelic blossom itself. Presently he
moved restlessly, and turning in his chair looked at her intently. The
fixity of his gaze drew her like a magnet from her work and she put
down her sewing.
"Do you want anything, Dad?"
He rose, and began to fumble with the buttons of his smock.
"Ay--just help me to get this off. The working day is over,--the
working clothes can go!"
She was at his side instantly and with her light deft fingers soon
disembarrassed him of the homely garment. When it was taken off a
noticeable transformation was effected in his appearance. Clad in plain
dark homespun, which was fashioned into a suit somewhat resembling the
doublet and hose of olden times, his tall thin figure had a distinctly
aristocratic look and bearing which was lacking when clothed in the
labourer's garb. Old as he was, there were traces of intellect and even
beauty in his features,--his head, on which the thin white hair shone
like spun silver, was proudly set on his shoulders in that unmistakable
line which indicates the power and the will to command; and as he
unconsciously drew himself upright he looked more like some old hero of
a hundred battles than a farmer whose chief pride was the excellence of
his crops and the prosperity of his farm managed by hand work only. For
despite the jeers of his neighbours, who were never tired of
remonstrating with him for not "going with the times," Jocelyn had one
fixed rule of farming, and this was that no modern machinery should be
used on his lands. He was the best employer of labour for many and many
a mile round, and the most generous as well as the most exact
paymaster, and though people asserted that there was no reasonable
explanation for it, nevertheless it annually happened that the
hand-sown, hand-reaped crops of Briar Farm were finer and richer in
grain and quality, and of much better value than the machine-sown,
machine-reaped crops of any other farm in the county or for that matter
in the three counties adjoining. He stood now for a minute or two
watching Innocent as she looked carefully over his smock frock to see
if there were any buttons missing or anything to be done requiring the
services of her quick needle and thread,--then as she folded it and put
it aside on a chair he said with a thrill of compassion in his voice:
"Poor little child, thou hast eaten no supper! I saw thee playing with
the bread and touching no morsel. Art not well?"
She looked up at him and tried to smile, but tears came into her eyes
despite her efforts to keep them back.
"Dear Dad, I am only anxious," she murmured, tremulously. "You, too,
have had nothing. Shall I fetch you a glass of the old wine? It will do
you good."
He still bent his brows thoughtfully upon her.
"Presently--presently--not now," he answered. "Come and sit by me at
the window and I'll tell you--I'll tell you what you must know. But see
you, child, if you are going to cry or fret, you will be no help to me
and I'll just hold my peace!"
She drew a quick breath, and her face paled.
"I will not cry," she said,--"I will not fret. I promise you, Dad!"
She came close up to him as she spoke. He took her gently in his arms
and kissed her.
"That's a brave girl!" And holding her by the hand he drew her towards
the open window--"Look out there! See how the stars shine! Always the
same, no matter what happens to us poor folk down here,--they twinkle
as merrily over our graves as over our gardens,--and yet if we're to
believe what we're taught nowadays, they're all worlds more or less
like our own, full of living creatures that suffer and die like
ourselves. It's a queer plan of the Almighty, to keep on making
wonderful and beautiful things just to destroy them! There seems no
sense in it!"
He sat down again in his chair, and she, obeying his gesture, brought a
low stool to his feet and settled herself upon it, leaning against his
knee. Her face was upturned to his and the flickering light of the tall
candles quivering over it showed the wistful tender watchfulness of its
expression--a look which seemed to trouble him, for he avoided her eyes.
"You want to know what the London doctor said," he began. "Well, child,
you'll not be any the better for knowing, but it's as I thought. I've
got my death-warrant. Slowton was not sure about me,--but this man, ill
as he is himself, has had too much experience to make mistakes. There's
no cure for me. I may last out another twelve months--perhaps not so
long--certainly not longer."
He saw her cheeks grow white with the ashy whiteness of a sudden shock.
Her eyes dilated with pain and fear, and a quick sigh escaped her, then
she set her lips hard.
"I don't believe it," she said, adding with stronger emphasis--"I WON'T
believe it!"
He patted the small hand that rested on his knee.
"You won't? Poor little girl, you must believe it!--and more than that,
you must be prepared for it. Even a year's none too much for all that
has to be done,--'twill almost take me that time to look the thing
square in the face and give up the farm for good."--Here he paused with
a kind of horror at his own words--"Give up the farm!--My God! And for
ever! How strange it seems!"
The tumult in her mind found sudden speech.
"Dad, dear! Dad! It isn't true! Don't think it! Don't mind what the
doctor says. He's wrong--I'm sure he's wrong! You'll live for many and
many a happy year yet--oh yes, Dad, you will! I'm sure of it! You won't
die, darling Dad! Why should you?"
She broke off with a half-smothered sob.
"Why should I?" he said, with a perplexed frown; "Ah!--that's more than
I can tell you! There's neither rhyme nor reason in it that I can see.
But it's the rule of life that it should end in death. For some the end
is swift--for some it's slow--some know when it's coming--some
don't,--the last are the happiest. I've been told, you see,--and it's
no use my fighting against the fact,--a year at the most, perhaps less,
is the longest term I have of Briar Farm. Your eyes are wet--you
promised you wouldn't cry."
She furtively dashed away the drops that were shining on her lashes.
Then she forced a faint quivering smile.
"I'm not crying, Dad," she said. "There's nothing to cry for," and she
fondled his hand in her own--"The doctors are wrong. You're only a
little weak and run down--you'll be all right with rest and
care--and--and you shan't die! You shan't die! I won't let you."
He drew a long breath and passed his hand across his forehead as though
he were puzzled or in pain.
"That's foolish talk," he said, with some harshness; "You've got
trouble to meet, and you must meet it. I'm bound to show you
trouble--but I can show you a way out of it as well."
He paused a moment,--a light wind outside the lattice swayed a branch
of roses to and fro, shaking out their perfume as from a swung censer.
"The first thing I must tell you," he went on, "is about yourself. It's
time you should know who you are."
She looked up at him startled.
"Who I am?" she repeated,--then as she saw the stern expression on his
face a sudden sense of fear ran through her nerves like the chill of an
icy wind and she waited dumbly for his next word. He gripped her hand
hard in his own.
"Now hear me out, child!" he said--"Let me speak on without
interruption, or I shall never get through the tale. Perhaps I ought to
have told you before, but I've put it off and put it off, thinking
'twould be time enough when you and Robin were wed. You and Robin--you
and Robin!--your marriage bells have rung through my brain many and
many a night for the past two years and never a bit nearer are you to
the end of your wooing, such fanciful children as you both are! And
you're so long about it and I've so short a time before me that I've
made up my mind it's best to let you have all the truth about yourself
before anything happens to me. All the truth about yourself--as far as
I know it."
He paused again. She was perfectly silent. She trembled a
little--wondering what she was going to hear. It must be something
dreadful, she thought,--something for which she was
unprepared,--something that might, perhaps, like a sudden change in the
currents of the air, create darkness where there had been sunshine,
storm instead of calm. His grip on her hand was strong enough to hurt
her, but she was not conscious of it. She only wished he would tell her
the worst at once and quickly. The worst,--for she instinctively felt
there was no best.
"It was eighteen years ago this very haymaking time," he went on, with
a dreamy retrospective air as though he were talking to himself,--"The
last load had been taken in. Supper was over. The men had gone
home,--Priscilla was clearing the great hall, when there came on a
sudden storm--just a flash of lightning--I can see it now, striking a
blue fork across the windows--a clap of thunder--and then a regular
downpour of rain. Heavy rain, too,--buckets-full--for it washed the
yard out and almost swamped the garden. I didn't think much about
it,--the hay was hauled in dry, and that was all my concern. I stood
under a shed in the yard and watched the rain falling in straight
sheets out of a sky black as pitch--I could scarcely see my own hand if
I stretched it out before me, the night was so dark. All at once I
heard the quick gallop of a horse's hoofs some way off,--then the sound
seemed to die away,--but presently I heard the hoofs coming at a slow
steady pace down our muddy old by-road--no one can gallop THAT, in any
weather. And almost before I knew how it came there, the horse was
standing at the farmyard gate, with a man in the saddle carrying a
bundle in front of him. He was the handsomest fellow I ever saw, and
when he dismounted and came towards me, and took off his cap in the
pouring rain and smiled at me, I was fairly taken with his looks. I
thought he must be something of a king or other great personage by his
very manner. 'Will you do me a kindness?' he said, as gently as you
please. 'This is a farm, I believe. I want to leave my little child
here in safe keeping for a night. She is such a baby,--I cannot carry
her any further through this storm.' And he put aside the wrappings of
the bundle he carried and showed me a small pale infant asleep. 'She's
motherless,' he added, 'and I'm taking her to my relatives. But I have
to ride some distance from here on very urgent business, and if you
will look after her for to-night I'll call for her to-morrow. Poor
little innocent! She's hungry and fretful. I haven't anything to give
her and the storm looks like continuing. Will you let her stay with
you?' 'Certainly!' said I, without thinking a bit further about it.
'Leave her here by all means. We'll see she gets all she wants.' He
gave me the child at once and said in a very soft voice: 'You are most
generous!--"verily I have not found so great a faith, no not in
Israel!" You're sure you don't mind?' 'Not at all!' I answered
him,--'You'll come back for her to-morrow, of course.' He smiled and
said--'Oh yes, of course! To-morrow! I'm really very much obliged to
you!' Then he seemed to think for a moment and put his hand in his
pocket, but I stopped him--'No, sir,' I said, 'excuse me, but I don't
want any pay for giving a babe a night's shelter.' He looked at me very
straight with his big clear hazel eyes, and then shook hands with me.
'You're an honest fellow,' he said,--and he stooped and kissed the
child he had put into my arms. 'I'm extremely sorry to trouble you, but
the storm is too much for this helpless little creature.' 'You yourself
are wet through,' I interrupted. 'That doesn't matter,' he
answered,--'for me nothing matters. Thank you a thousand times!
Good-night!' The rain was coming down faster than ever and I stepped
back into the shed, covering the child up so that the drifting wet
should not beat upon it. He came after me and kissed it again, saying
'Good-night, poor little innocent, good-night!' three or four times.
Then he went off quickly and sprang into his saddle and in the blur of
rain I saw horse and man turn away. He waved his hand once and his
handsome pale face gleamed upon me like that of a ghost in the storm.
'Till to-morrow!' he called, and was gone. I took the child into the
house and called Priscilla. She was always a rough one as you know,
even in her younger days, and she at once laid her tongue to with a
will and as far as she dared called me a fool for my pains. And so I
was, for when I came to think of it the man was a stranger to me, and I
had never asked him his name. It was just his handsome face and the way
he had with him that had thrown me off my guard as it were; so I stood
and looked silly enough, I suppose, while Priscilla fussed about with
the baby, for it had wakened and was crying. Well!"--and Jocelyn heaved
a short sigh--"That's about all! We never saw the man again, and the
child was never claimed; but every six months I received a couple of
bank-notes in an envelope bearing a different postmark each time, with
the words: 'For Innocent' written inside--"
She uttered a quick, almost terrified exclamation, and drew her hand
away from his.
"Every six months for a steady twelve years on end," he went on,--"then
the money suddenly stopped. Now you understand, don't you? YOU were the
babe that was left with me that stormy night; and you've been with me
ever since. But you're not MY child. I don't know whose child you are!"
He stopped, looking at her.
She had risen from her seat beside him and was standing up. She was
trembling violently, and her face seemed changed from the round and
mobile softness of youth to the worn pallor and thinness of age. Her
eyes were luminous with a hard and feverish brilliancy.
"You--you don't know whose child I am!" she repeated,--"I am not
yours--and you don't know--you don't know who I belong to! Oh, it hurts
me!--it hurts me, Dad! I can't realise it! I thought you were my own
dear father!--and I loved you!--oh, how much I loved you!--yet you have
deceived me all along!"
"I haven't deceived you," he answered, impatiently. "I've done all for
the best--I meant to tell you when you married Robin--"
A flush of indignation flew over her cheeks.
"Marry Robin!" she exclaimed--"How could I marry Robin? I'm nothing!
I'm nobody! I have not even a name!"
She covered her face with her hands and an uncontrollable sob broke
from her.
"Not even a name!" she murmured--"Not even a name!"
With a sudden impulsive movement she knelt down in front of him like a
child about to say its prayers.
"Oh, help me, Dad!" she said, piteously--"Comfort me! Say
something--anything! I feel so lost--so astray! All my life seems
gone!--I can't realise it! Yes, I know! You have been very kind,--all
kindness, just as if I had been your own little girl. Oh, why did you
tell me I was your own?--I was so proud to be your daughter--and
now--it's so hard--so hard! Only a few moments ago I was a happy girl
with a loving father as I thought--now I know I'm only a poor nameless
creature,--deserted by my parents and left on your hands. Oh, Dad dear!
I've given you years of trouble!--I hope I've been good to you! It's
not my fault that I am what I am!"
He laid his wrinkled hand on her bowed head.
"Dear child, of course it's not your fault! That's what I've said all
along. You're innocent, like your name,--and you've been a blessing to
me all your days,--the farm has been brighter for your living on
it,--so you've no cause to worry me or yourself about what's past long
ago and can't be helped. No one knows your story but Priscilla,--no one
need ever know."
She sprang up from her kneeling attitude.
"Priscilla!" she echoed--"She knew, and she never said a word!"
"If she had, she'd have got the sack," answered Jocelyn, bluntly. "You
were brought up always as MY child."
He broke off, startled by the tragic intensity of her look.
"I want to know how that was," she said, slowly. "You told me my mother
died when I was born."
He avoided her eyes.
"Well, that was true, or so I suppose," he said. "The man who brought
you said you were motherless. But I--I have never married."
"Then how could you tell Robin--and everyone else about here that I was
your daughter?"
He grew suddenly angry.
"Child, don't stare at me like that!" he exclaimed, with all an old
man's petulance. "It doesn't matter what I said--I had to let the
neighbours think you were mine--"
A light flashed in upon her, and she gave vent to a shuddering cry.
"Dad! Oh, Dad!"
Gripping both arms of his chair he raised himself into an upright
posture.
"What now?" he demanded, almost fiercely--"What trouble are you going
to make of it?"
"Oh, if it were only trouble," she exclaimed, forlornly. "It's far
worse! You've branded me with shame! Oh, I understand now! I understand
at last why the girls about here never make friends with me! I
understand why Robin seems to pity me so much! Oh, how shall I ever
look people in the face again!"
His fuzzy brows met in a heavy frown.
"Little fool!" he said, roughly,--"What shame are you talking of? I see
no shame in laying claim to a child of my own, even though the claim
has no reality. Look at the thing squarely! Here comes a strange man
with a baby and leaves it on my hands. You know what a scandalous,
gossiping little place this is,--and it was better to say at once the
baby was mine than leave it to the neighbours to say the same thing and
that I wouldn't acknowledge it. Not a soul about here would have
believed the true story if I had told it to them. I've done everything
for the best--I know I have. And there'll never be a word said if you
marry Robin."
Her face had grown very white. She put up her hand to her head and her
fingers touched the faded wreath of wild roses. She drew it off and let
it drop to the ground.
"I shall never marry Robin!" she said, with quiet firmness--"And I will
not be considered your illegitimate child any longer. It's cruel of you
to have made me live on a lie!--yes, cruel!--though you've been so kind
in other things. You don't know who my parents were--you've no right to
think they were not honest!"
He stared at her amazed. For the first time in eighteen years he began
to see the folly of what he had thought his own special wisdom. This
girl, with her pale sad face and steadfast eyes, confronted him with
the calm reproachful air of an accusing angel.
"What right have you?" she went on. "The man who brought me to
you,--poor wretched me!--if he was my father, may have been good and
true. He said I was motherless; and he, or someone else, sent you money
for me till I was twelve. That did not look as if I was forgotten. Now
you say the money has stopped--well!--my father may be dead." Her lips
quivered and a few tears rolled down her cheeks. "But there is nothing
in all this that should make you think me basely born,--nothing that
should have persuaded you to put shame upon me!"
He was taken aback for a minute by her words and attitude--then he
burst out angrily:
"It's the old story, I see! Do a good action and it turns out a curse!
Basely born! Of course you are basely born, if that's the way you put
it! What man alive would leave his own lawful child at a strange farm
off the high-road and never claim it again? You're a fool, I tell you!
This man who brought you to me was by his look and bearing some fine
gentleman or other who had just the one idea in his head--to get rid of
an encumbrance. And so he got rid of you--"
"Don't go over the whole thing again!" she interrupted, with weary
patience-"-I was an encumbrance to him--I've been an encumbrance to
you. I'm sorry! But in no case had you the right to set a stigma on me
which perhaps does not exist. That was wrong!"
She paused a moment, then went on slowly:
"I've been a burden on you for six years now,--it's six years, you say,
since the money stopped. I wish I could do something in return for what
I've cost you all those six years,--I've tried to be useful."
The pathos in her voice touched him to the quick.
"Innocent!" he exclaimed, and held out his arms.
She looked at him with a very pitiful smile and shook her head.
"No! I can't do that! Not just yet! You see, it's all so
unexpected--things have changed altogether in a moment. I can't feel
quite the same--my heart seems so sore and cold."
He leaned back in his chair again.
"Ah, well, it is as I thought!" he said, irritably. "You're more
concerned about yourself than about me. A few minutes ago you only
cared to know what the doctors thought of my illness, but now it's
nothing to you that I shall be dead in a year. Your mind is set on your
own trouble, or what you choose to consider a trouble."
She heard him like one in a dream. It seemed very strange to her that
he should have dealt her a blow and yet reproach her for feeling the
force of it.
"I am sorry!" she said, patiently. "But this is the first time I have
known real trouble--you forget that!--and you must forgive me if I am
stupid about it. And if the doctors really believe you are to die in a
year I wish I could take your place, Dad!--I would rather be dead than
live shamed. And there's nothing left for me now,--not even a name--"
Here she paused and seemed to reflect.
"Why am I called Innocent?"
"Why? Because that's the name that was written on every slip of paper
that came with each six months' money," he answered, testily. "That's
the only reason I know."
"Was I baptised by that name?" she asked.
He moved uneasily.
"You were never baptised."
"Never baptised!" She echoed the words despairingly,--and then was
silent for a minute's space. "Could you not have done that much for
me?" she asked, plaintively, at last--"Would it have been impossible?"
He was vaguely ashamed. Her eyes, pure as a young child's, were fixed
upon him in appealing sorrow. He began to feel that he had done her a
grievous wrong, though he had never entirely realised it till now. He
answered her with some hesitation and an effort at excuse.
"Not impossible--no,--maybe I could have baptised you myself if I had
thought about it. 'Tis but a sprinkle of water and 'In the Name of the
Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.' But somehow I never worried my head--for
as long as you were a baby I looked for the man who brought you day
after day, and in my own mind left all that sort of business for him to
attend to--and when he didn't come and you grew older, it fairly
slipped my remembrance altogether. I'm not fond of the Church or its
ways,--and you've done as well without baptism as with it, surely.
Innocent is a good name for you, and fits your case. For you're
innocent of the faults of your parents whatever they were, and you're
innocent of my blunders. You're free to make your own life pleasant if
you'll only put a bright face on it and make the best of an awkward
business."
She was silent, standing before him like a little statuesque figure of
desolation.
"As for the tale I told the neighbours," he went on--"it was the best
thing I could think of. If I had said you were a child I had taken in
to adopt, not one of them would have believed me; 'twas a case of
telling one lie or t'other, the real truth being so queer and out of
the common, so I chose the easiest. And it's been all right with you,
my girl, whichever way you put it. There may be a few stuck-up young
huzzies in the village that aren't friendly to you, but you may take it
that it's more out of jealousy of Robin's liking for you than anything
else. Robin loves you--you know he does; and all you've got to do is to
make him happy. Marry him, for the farm will be his when I'm dead, and
it'll give me a bit of comfort to feel that you're settled down with
him in the old home. For then I know it'll go on just the same--just
the same--"
His words trailed off brokenly. His head sank on his chest, and some
slow tears made their difficult way out of his eyes and dropped on his
silver beard.
She watched him with a certain grave compassion, but she did not at
once go, as she would usually have done, to put her arms round his neck
and console him. She seemed to herself removed miles away from him and
from everything she had ever known. Just then there was a noise of
rough but cheery voices outside shouting "good-night" to each other,
and she said in a quiet tone:
"The men are away now. Is there anything you want before I go to bed?"
With a sudden access of energy, which contrasted strangely with his
former feebleness, he rose and confronted her.
"No, there's nothing I want!" he said, in vehement tones--"Nothing but
peace and quietness! I've told you your story, and you take it ill. But
recollect, girl, that if you consider any shame has been put on you,
I've put equal shame on myself for your sake--I, Hugo Jocelyn,--against
whom never a word has been said but this,--which is a lie--that my
child, mine!--was born out of wedlock! I suffered this against myself
solely for your sake--I, who never wronged a woman in my life!--I, who
never loved but one woman, who died before I had the chance to marry
her!--and I say and I swear I have sacrificed something of my name and
reputation to you! So that you need not make trouble because you also
share in the sacrifice. Robin thinks you're my child, and therefore his
cousin,--and he counts nothing against you, for he knows that what the
world would count against you must be my fault and would be my fault,
if the lie I started against myself was true. Marry Robin, I tell
you!--and if you care to make me happy, marry him before I die. Then
you're safe out of all harm's way. If you DON'T marry him--"
Her breath came and went quickly--she folded her hands across her
bosom, trying to still the loud and rapid beating of her heart, but her
eyes were very bright and steadfast.
"Yes? What then?" she asked, calmly.
"Then you must take the consequences," he said. "The farm and all I
have is left to Robin,--he's my dead sister's son and my nearest living
kin--"
"I know that," she said, simply, "and I'm glad he has everything. It's
right that it should be so. I shall not be in his way. You may be quite
sure of that. But I shall not marry him."
"You'll not marry him?" he repeated, and seemed about to give vent to a
torrent of invective when she extended her hands clasped together
appealingly.
"Dad, don't be angry!--it only hurts you and it does no good! Just
before supper you reminded me of what they say in Church that 'the sins
of the fathers should be visited on the children, even unto the third
and fourth generation.' I will not visit the sin of my father and
mother on anyone. If you will give me a little time I shall be able to
understand everything more clearly, and perhaps bear it better. I want
to be quite by myself. I must try to see myself as I am,--unbaptised,
nameless, forsaken! And if there is anything to be done with this
wretched little self of mine, it is I that must do it. With God's
help!" She sighed, and her lips moved softly again in the last words,
"With God's help!"
He said nothing, and she waited a moment as if expecting him to speak.
Then she moved to the table where she had been sitting and folded up
her needlework.
"Shall I get you some wine, Dad?" she asked presently in a quiet voice.
"No!" he replied, curtly--"Priscilla can get it."
"Then good-night!"
Still standing erect he turned his head and looked at her.
"Are you going?" he said. "Without your usual kiss?--your usual
tenderness? Why should you change to me? Your own father--if he was
your father--deserted you,--and I have been, a father to you in his
place, wronging my own honourable name for your sake; am I to blame for
this? Be reasonable! The laws of man are one thing and the laws of God
are another,--and we have to make the best we can of ourselves between
the two. There's many a piece of wicked injustice in the world, but
nothing more wicked than to set shame or blame on a child that's born
without permit of law or blessing of priest. For it's not the child's
fault,--it's brought into the world without its own consent,--and yet
the world fastens a slur upon it! That's downright brutal and
senseless!--for if there is any blame attached to the matter it should
be fastened on the parents, and not on the child. And that's what I
thought when you were left on my hands--I took the blame of you on
myself, and I was careful that you should be treated with every
kindness and respect--mind you that! Respect! There's not a man on the
place that doesn't doff his cap to you; and you've been as my own
daughter always. You can't deny it! And more than that"--here his
strong voice faltered--"I've loved you!--yes-I've loved you, little
Innocent--"
She looked up in his face and saw it quivering with suppressed emotion,
and the strange cold sense of aloofness that had numbed her senses
suddenly gave way like snow melting in the spring. In a moment she was
in his arms, weeping out her pent-up tears on his breast, and he,
stroking her soft hair, soothed her with every tender and gentle word
he could think of.
"There, there!" he murmured, fondly. "Thou must look at it in this way,
dear child! That if God deprived thee of one father he gave thee
another in his place! Make the best of that gift before it be taken
from thee!"