"Now that you are settled for some time to come, I presume that you will not be long before you break the news to Eleanor? You must remember that as yet she knows absolutely nothing." So spoke Miss Bellamy to Ambrose Murray one evening across the tea-table. Gerald was also there. This was the first time that Eleanor's name had been mentioned since Murray's arrival, and Miss Bellamy could bear the father's strange silence no longer. "It is not my intention to tell my daughter anything at present. Why should I?" said Murray. Miss Bellamy looked at him as though she could scarcely believe her ears. "Why should you not?" she said. "It seems to me that one of the very first things you ought to do is to tell everything to your only child." Murray stirred his tea slowly for a few moments before answering. "Eleanor is well and comfortable, I hope," he said at last. "Quite well and quite comfortable." "She is still living among her friends at Pembridge?" "She is." "And wants for nothing?" "And wants for nothing, so far as I know." "That is well. And she still believes that Jacob Lloyd was her father?" "I am not aware that anyone has undeceived her on that point." "Why should I be the first to undeceive her?" "Jacob Lloyd is dead. You are her father, and you are now a free man." "Precisely so. I am a free man because I have broken my prison bonds. I am a free man who is liable to recapture at any moment. I am a free man to whose name the stain of murder still clings." "But Eleanor would never believe you to be guilty, as I have never believed you, to be guilty." "Possibly not. But why distress her by making her the recipient of so painful a revelation?" "She is your daughter, and she has a right to be told the truth." "As you say, she is my daughter, and perhaps she has a right to be told. But seeing that her ignorance has lasted for twenty years, it cannot matter greatly if she be kept in the same ignorance for a few weeks or a few months longer. That ultimately everything will be told her, I do not doubt; but not now--not till--till----" Overcome by some hidden emotion, he faltered, and was dumb. "Not till what, Ambrose?" said Miss Bellamy very gently. "Not till I have proved my innocence to the world." Miss Bellamy sighed, but said nothing. If Eleanor was not to be told her father's story till his innocence should be proved, then would it remain untold for ever. "Do not think," resumed Ambrose Murray, "that I have not thought over, times without number, all that can be urged either for or against the telling of my story to Eleanor, but I have come to the conclusion that for a little while to come it had better remain untold." "And do you think, Ambrose, that after such a length of time there is any chance, however remote, of your being able to prove your innocence?"