“You are not glad to see me,” he remarked, “and I must say I do not wonder. I have lived a hard life since I left you a crying child in your mother’s room upstairs, but I am your father, for all that, and you owe me respect if not obedience. Look up, Maida, and let me see what kind of a woman you have grown to be.” At this name, which had been a pet one with her parents and with them alone, the neighbors stared and Polly shrank, feeling the iron of certainty pierce deep into her soul. She met his eyes, however, with courage and answered his demand by a very natural reproach. “If you are my father, and alas! I see no reason to doubt it, I should think you would feel some shame in alluding to a growth which you have done nothing to advance.” “I know,” he admitted, “that you have something with which to reproach me; the secret of those days is not for ears like yours. I left you, but—never ask me why, Maida. And now, go out into the sun. I should not like to have my first act toward you a cruel one.” Dazed, almost fainting, doubting whether or no she was the victim of some horrible nightmare, she let herself be led away to where the sun shone down on the lilacs of the overgrown garden. But no sooner did she realize that the man of her dread had been left in the house with her neighbors than she urged Clarke to return at once to where he was. “Let him be watched,” she cried; “follow him as he goes about the house. It is his; I feel that it is his, but do not let us succumb to his demands without a struggle. He has such a wicked face, and his tones are so harsh and unfatherly.” Clarke, who had come to a similar conclusion, though by other means than herself, hastened to obey her. He found the self-styled Earle in the midst of the group of neighbors, chattering freely and answering questions with more or less free and easy banter. Though privation spoke in every outline of his face and form, and poverty in every rag of his dress, his bearing gave evidences of refinement, and no one, not even Clarke himself, doubted that if he were put to the test he would show himself to be at least the wreck of the once brilliant scholar and man of resources. He was drawing the whole crowd after him through the house and was hazarding guesses right and left to prove the excellence of his memory.