“We heard on Wednesday. He was leaving London that afternoon for the South Coast. He wrote very cheerfully, and said he felt better already.” “I am glad,” she said, softly. Then we were silent for a few moments. There was so much that we could both have said. “Mr. Deville has been here inquiring for you,” she said. “You have been invisible, he said. Have you been unwell?” I shook my head. I wanted much to have told her of Olive Berdenstein’s visit to me, and of my compact with her. For a moment I hesitated. She noticed it, and doubtless drew her own conclusions. “There has been nothing particular to keep me in,” I said. “I simply felt that I wished to see no one. Don’t you feel like that sometimes?” “Very often,” she assented. “I think the desire for solitude is common to all of us at times.” Then we were silent again. I knew quite well what she was waiting for from me, yet I was silent and troubled. Almost I wished that I had not come. “You have thought over what I told you when you were here,” she said, softly. “You have thought of it, of course.” “Yes,” I answered. “How could I help it--how could I think of anything else?” “You have remembered that you are my daughter,” she added, with a little quiver in her tone. “Yes.” I kept my eyes upon the carpet; she sighed. “You are very hard,” she said--”very hard.” “I do not think so,” I answered. “I do not wish to be. It is not I who have made myself; I cannot control my instincts. I do not wish to say anything to you unless it comes from my heart.” “You are my daughter,” she murmured, softly. “It is true,” I answered; “yet consider that I have only known it a few days. Do you think that I can feel--like that--towards you so soon? It is impossible. A few weeks ago we were strangers. I cannot forget that.” She winced a little at the word, but I repeated it. “It may seem an odd thing to say, but so far at any rate as I was concerned, we were strangers. I do feel--differently towards you now of course. In time the rest will come, no doubt, but I should only be a hypocrite if I pretended more at present, you must see that; and,” I continued, with a shade of bitterness in my tone, “there is the shame. One cannot forget that all at once.” She shrank back as though I had struck her a blow across the face. Unwittingly I knew that I had wounded her deeply. But how could I help it? “The shame,” she repeated in a low tone--”ay, the shame. That seems an odd word for me to hear. But it is a true one. I must learn to bear it. There is the shame! Oh, God! this is my punishment.” “You cannot deny it,” I said. “How could you ever have thought of it in any other way? You deliberately chose to live with my father without marrying him. By your own admission there was not the faintest obstacle to your marriage. You had the satisfaction of living up to your theories, I have to pay the penalty.” She bowed her head. “It is true,” she said.