These last words roused Edith. It was an allusion to her possible guilt. She determined to bring the interview to a close. She was tired of this man and his attempts to deceive her. It was painful to see through all this hypocrisy and perfidy at the very moment when they were being used against herself. She looked at him with a stony gaze, and spoke in low, cold tones as she addressed him. “This is all useless. I am on my guard. Why you come here I do not know. Of course you wish to entrap me into saying something, so that you may use my words against me at the trial. You ask me if I saw this man on that night. You ask me if I am innocent. You well know that I am innocent. You, and you only, know who saw him last on that night; for as I believe in my own existence, so I believe, and affirm to your face, that this Leon Dudleigh was murdered by you, and you only!” He looked at her fixedly as she said this, returning her stony gaze with a mournful look--a pitying look, full of infinite sadness and tenderness. He raised his hand deprecatingly, but said nothing until she had uttered those last words. “Stop!” he said, in a low voice--“stay! I can not bear it.” He rose from his seat and came close to her. He leaned upon his stick heavily, and looked at her with eyes full of that same strange, inexplicable tenderness and compassion. Her eyes seemed fascinated by his, and in her mind there arose a strange bewilderment, an expectation of something she knew not what. “Edith,” said he, in a sweet and gentle voice, full of tender melancholy--“Edith, it would be sin in me to let you any longer heap up matter for future remorse; and even though I go against the bright hope of my life in saying this now, yet I must. Edith--” He paused, looking at her, while she regarded him with awful eyes. “Edith!” he said again--“my--my--child!” There were tears in his eyes now, and there was on his face a look of unutterable love and unspeakable pity and forgiveness. He reached out his hand and placed it tenderly upon her head. “Edith,” he said again, “my child, you will never say these things again. I--I do not deserve them. I--am your--your father, Edith!” At these words a convulsive shudder passed through Edith. He felt her frail form tremble, he saw her head fall, and heard a low sob that seemed torn from her.