She laughed at the very absurdity of it. "It may be hard, but I think I can manage father," she went on. "He’s too fond of me really to oppose what I’m set on." "I only wish I could do something to assure him, to propitiate him," said Granthope. "My position has been so undignified that I’ve had no chance. I have been meeting you surreptitiously, and I suppose he suspects me of being after your money." "While the truth is, I’m after yours!" "I wonder if, after all, it _is_ mine?" he said thoughtfully. "I have never been able to find any heirs of Madam Grant—and her last message to me seemed to be that I should have what she left." "Oh, it’s yours, I’m sure!" she said. "I long so to know about her! If I could once convince your father of my sincerity there’s much I’d like to ask him." "Father is a strange man. He is often unreasonable and prejudiced in his judgment and treatment of people, but there’s a warm vein of affection underneath it all. There’s something hidden, something almost furtive, even in his attitude toward me, sometimes, that I can’t understand. I happened on a queer evidence of his emotional side only a little while ago. There is a big trunk up-stairs in our garret where my mother’s things are stored. It’s always kept locked; I’ve never seen the inside of it. Well, I started to go up into the attic for something, and as I was half-way up the steps where I could just see into the loft, I heard a noise up there. Father was on his knees, in front of that trunk. He was examining something in his hand. There was a tenderness and a pathos in his posture—I got only one glimpse of him before I went down again. You know my mother died when I was about five years old—soon after that day at Madam Grant’s. He never seems to want me to talk about my mother at all; he evades the subject whenever I mention her. I think that he must have been very fond of her, and it’s still painful to discuss her." "Have you ever asked him about that clipping about Felicia Gerard?" "Why, he’s as reserved about her, too. Isn’t it. strange? But I’m sure that she was Madam Grant—there’s a mystery about her I can’t fathom. Do tell me more about her. You don’t know how queer it seems that I have actually seen her." He gave her all he knew of the strange, mad woman’s life—it was not much, as he had been so young then—his straying into her rooms, her adoption of him, his education, his loneliness, his love. She warmed to him anew as he told the story. "Ah, that’s the part of you I know and love the best!" she exclaimed. "How good you were to her! If anything could make me love you more, it would be your devotion to that poor, lonely, ravaged soul. It seems as if you have served me in serving her, and I would like to think that I could pay you back, by my love, for all you gave her. It stirs me so to think of her pain and her despair!"