"He was the provocative influence. When your father was a young man he owed George Emmett money; nearly everyone who came in contact with Emmett did owe him money; even your mother. He used his influence with your father to breed in his mind suspicion of your mother; which would not have been an easy thing to do had not your mother, in her hatred of the man, actually gone out of her way to help him. It was a case of two simpletons and a blackguard--they were like putty in his hands. It's a long and a tangled tale; but the end was as I've told you. Emmett's grievance against your mother didn't die with her. It lived on. For years, financially, your father was always more or less in his toils; and Emmett never lost an opportunity of fostering in him the feeling of resentment at what he supposed was your mother's treachery; it was as if someone had been continually dropping an irritant on an open sore; the result was a festering horror. At last, even your father realised that the thing had become past bearing. He did what, if he had been another man, he might have done years before: he strained every nerve--such nerves as he had left--to rid himself of the incubus. And he succeeded. And though, when all was done, he was practically a beggar, his freedom was cheap even at the price which he had paid. The odd thing was that, scarcely was he beggared, when Fortune, in one of her most fantastic moods, tossed wealth into his hands--so that he was a rich man when he died. I was abroad at the time of his death; but, as soon as I heard the news, I hurried home. I found his will; I found his fortune; I found that he had left the whole conduct of affairs in my hands; and, also, for the first time I learned your address. I had never known it before; he was the only person who had known it. I believe it was the only secret he ever kept; and, for keeping it, I find it hard to forgive him even now. Had I only been acquainted with your whereabouts I should have communicated with you, both at regular and irregular intervals. I should have asked you to regard me as a deputy father." "I could not have done that, ever." "No; I suppose you couldn't." But he meant one thing; and, in her heart, she meant another. He went on: "So soon as I did know your address I tore off by the very next boat and train to see you. I can give you no idea of what were my feelings of amazement when the good ladies at the convent told me that you had gone." "But didn't you know that I had gone?" "Didn't I know that you had gone! Did I know that the heavens had fallen! I have had some curious moments in my life; but I verily believe that the one in which I learnt that you had left the convent with Mr George Emmett was the most singular of them all." "But had he no right to take me away?" "Right! That--that--we must not speak ill of the dead, so I will say--that gentleman!" "But he said he was my guardian."