“I shall remain plain Damon Barker,” he said. “It is a good name, and has never been disgraced, and I shall keep it. It is as good as any other, and it would be confusing to change.” I remained with them until long after midnight, and when I went softly up the stairs to my room, I could hear them talking in low tones. During the night, as I restlessly tossed about, I heard the hum of their voices, and when I came down early in the morning after a disturbed rest, I found Agnes quietly sleeping, with her head on her father’s knee, but Damon Barker’s eyes were wide open, and there was a smile on his face, and I thought he had grown younger during the night. I can never forget the loneliness which came over me when they drove away in the morning, waving their adieus, nor the coldness which came into the house, and would not be driven out. I am certain we lighted fires that night, though they had not been necessary before, and when Martin came down to sit with us, he shivered as he entered the room, and rubbed his hands to warm them. CHAPTER XXVI. BARKER’S STORY. My first recollection is of being on board a sailing ship at sea, and by degrees I learned that my mother was dead; that the rough commander who was dreaded and feared by everyone else as well as myself was my father, and that I was kept with him on the ship because I was less troublesome there than anywhere else, and because he desired to look after my education in person, which began when I was five years old. I heard somewhere that my father, the rough commander, had been very fond of my mother, who died the day I was born, and that his disposition had been different since he gave her an ocean burial, on which occasion he read the service himself in a choking voice, and, locking himself in his cabin directly after it was over, did not come out again for three days and four nights. There was but one other woman on the ship, the stewardess, and I was put in her care, but before I was old enough to remember, she went away, so that I have not the slightest recollection of her.