“He told me himself—papa—he has the proofs. Mother, mother, say in mercy that he is only angry—that it is not so!” With a wild gesture, and a burst of passionate tears, the unhappy girl cast herself into her mother’s arms. The poor lady trembled beneath the weight of that fragile form. She wove her arms around it; she pressed kiss after kiss upon that forehead with her cold and quivering lips. She strove, by the warmth and passion of her maternal love, to charm away the pain and the truth from her daughter’s heart, but she said not in words, “Myra, you are my child,” and the young girl arose from her bosom utterly desolate. The morrow came, and Myra stood by her father in his study, for he was still a father to her. The escritoir was open before them, and a large pocket-book, with the seal wrenched apart, lay upon the lid. Mr. D. sat with his head bent and shading his troubled forehead with one hand. Myra held a letter in her shaking grasp—a letter addressed to the man whom she had always deemed her parent, and signed by Daniel Clark. She could not read; the words swam before her eyes, but she laid her finger on the signature and said in a low and husky voice, “This name—Daniel Clark—he was my godfather.” “He was your father!” replied Mr. D. “Read, read for yourself.” Myra forced her nerves to be still. With desperate resolution she kept her eyes upon the writing. Every word of that letter contained proof that went to her heart. She was the daughter of Daniel Clark. CHAPTER VI. She left the parent roof, and left in grief, Not from an idle passion vain and light, But in her heart there lived a firm belief, That duty call’d and honor urged her flight.