"You are right when you say I have suffered a good deal, I won't say at your hands, but at the hands of your father, and Heaven knows my hatred of him has not lacked intensity." Then he paused suddenly and looked at her, but she did not raise her eyes. "You are his daughter," he went on, slowly and bitingly, "his own flesh and blood. You bear a name that I loathe more than any other name on earth." She winced visibly, and her cheeks became crimson. "But Fate has been cruel to me in every way. Your very kindness to me, to Ruth, to my mother, has only added to my torture----" "Added to----" But he did not let her finish the sentence. His nerves were strung up to the highest point of tension. He felt, in a sense, outside himself. He was no longer master of his own emotions. "Had you been like your father," he continued, "I could have hated you also. But it may be that, to punish me for hating your father so bitterly, God made me love you." She rose to her feet in a moment, her face ashen. "Don't go away," he said, quietly and deliberately. "It will do you no harm to hear me out. I did not seek this interview. I shall never seek another. A man who has been in prison, and whose mother died in the workhouse----" "In the workhouse?" she said, with a gasp. "Thanks to your father," he said slowly and bitterly. "And yet, in spite of all this, I had dared to love you. No, don't sneer at me," he said, mistaking a motion of her lips. "God knows I have about as much as I can bear. I tried to hate you. I felt it almost a religious duty to hate you. I fought against the passion that has conquered me till I had no strength left." She had sat down again, with her eyes upon the ground, but her bosom was heaving as though a tempest raged beneath. "Why have you told me this?" she said at length, with a sudden fierce light in her eyes. "Oh, I hardly know," he said, with a reckless laugh. "For the fun of it, I expect. Don't imagine I have any ulterior object in view, save that of self-defence." "Self-defence?" "Yes; you will despise me now. My effrontery and impertinence will be too much even for your large charity. I can fancy how the tempest of your scorn is gathering. I don't mind it. Let it rage. It may help to turn my heart against you." She did not answer him; she sat quite still with her eyes fixed upon the ground. He looked at her for several moments in silence, and his mood began to change. What spirit had possessed him to talk as he had done? She rose to her feet at length, and raised her eyes timidly to his face. Whether she was angry or disgusted, or only sorry, he could not tell. He rose also, but he scarcely dared to look at her. "Good-afternoon," she said at length; and she held out her hand to him. "Good-afternoon," he answered; but he did not take her outstretched hand, he pretended not even to see it.