“Polly,”—The doctor spoke coldly but not unkindly, “marry Clarke, go with him to Cleveland where he has the promise of a fine position, and leave this arrant pretender to settle his rights himself. He will not urge them long when he finds the money gone for which he is striving.” “You bid me do that? Then you _know_ he is not my father.” But the doctor instead of answering with the vigorous yes she had expected, looked aside and carelessly murmured: “I have said that I saw no likeness in him to the man I once knew. Of course my judgment was hurried, our interview was short and I was laboring under the shock of his appearance. But if everybody else in town recognizes him as Ephraim Earle, I must needs think my opinion was warped by my surprise and the indignation I felt at what I considered a gross piece of presumption.” “Then you do not know,” quoth poor Polly, her head sinking lower and lower on her breast. “No,” cried the doctor, turning shortly at the word and advancing once more toward the buggy. But at this move she sprang forward and sought again to detain him. “But you will not go and leave me in this dreadful uncertainty,” she pleaded. “You will stay and have another talk with this man and satisfy yourself and me that he is indeed my father.” But the stern line into which the doctor’s lip settled, assured her that in this regard he was not to be moved; and frightened, overawed by the prospect before her, she turned to Clarke and cried: “Take me home, take me back to your mother; she is the only person who can give me any comfort.” The doctor who was slowly proceeding to his horse’s head, looked back. “Then you don’t like my advice,” he smiled. She stared, remembered what he had said and answered indignantly: “If this poor, wretched, wicked-eyed man is my father—and I should never have doubted it if you had not declared him an impostor before all the town people—then I would be a coward to desert him and seek my happiness in a place where he could not follow me.” “Even if he is as wicked as his looks indicate?” “Yes, yes, even if he is wicked. Who can say what caused that wickedness.” The doctor, fumbling with the halter, stopped and seemed to muse. “Did you ever see your father’s picture hanging in the old cottage?” “Yes, I saw it yesterday.” “Did that have a wicked look?” “I do not think it had a good look.” This was said very low but it made the doctor start. “No?” he exclaimed. “It made me feel a little unpleasant, as if something I could neither understand nor sympathize with had met me in my father’s smile. It made him more remote, and prepared me for the heartless figure of the man who in the next few minutes claimed me as his daughter.” “Strange!” issued from the doctor’s lips; and his face, which had been hard to read from the first, became more and more inscrutable.