This was Magdalen’s letter, which she handed to Guy in her father’s presence when she went to say good-night to the two gentlemen in the parlor. “Will you write to Mr. Irving, too?” she asked Mr. Grey, who shook his head, while a look of embarrassment and pain flitted across his face. “Not now,—some time perhaps I may. I am truly grateful to him, and Guy must tell him so. Guy will know just what to say. I leave it in his hands.” Mr. Grey was not quite like himself that night, and when next morning Magdalen met him at breakfast, he still seemed abstracted and absent-minded, and but little inclined to talk. When breakfast was over, however, he went with her to her room, and sitting down beside her grasped her hands in his, and said: “Magdalen, my child, I never expected to see this day,—never thought there was so much happiness in store for me,—a happiness I have not deserved, and which still is not unmixed with pain and humiliation. Magdalen, my daughter,” he continued, “there is something between us which should not be between a father and his child. I feel it in your manners, and see it in your face, and hear it in your voice. What is it, Magdalen?” He was talking very kindly, and sadly too, and the tears glittered in Magdalen’s eyes, but she did not reply. She could not tell him all the hard things she had written against him in her heart, before she knew him to be her father, but he guessed them in part, and continued: “Penelope told you something of your mother’s story. I wonder if she told you all?” “Yes, all that I ever care to hear,” Magdalen replied. “I know of her clandestine marriage, her wretched life at Beechwood, of their taking Alice from her, and of—of your cruel neglect of her.” She said the last hesitatingly, for there was something in the blue eyes fastened upon her which prevented her saying as hard things as she felt. “Yes, it’s all true, and more,” Mr. Grey replied. “Penelope could not tell you as bad as it was, for she never knew all. I did neglect your mother when she needed me the most. I liked my ease. I could not endure scenes. I was afraid of mother. I acted a coward’s part, and Laura suffered for it. She was beautiful once,—oh, so beautiful when I first met her in her sweet young girlhood! She was much like you, and I loved her as well as I was capable of loving then. I had been thwarted and crossed, and had done things for which I have always been sorry, but never as sorry as since I have known you were my child, for there is something in your face which seems continually to reproach me for the past, and until I have made you my confession, I feel that there cannot be perfect confidence between us. I think I had seen you before you came to Beechwood.” “Yes, in Belvidere, at Mrs. Irving’s grave, though I did not know who you were. I had not heard of you _then_.” She knew about Jessie,—Mr. Grey was sure of that, and with something between a sigh and a groan, he said: