Disgraceful! He started and chided himself. Was he linking the thought of disgrace with her, the child of his heart, his bright, beautiful darling, who had always been his favorite child? No, no, sin could never touch her, she was too pure, too true, too innocent. He gazed anxiously into her sweet, blue eyes, and in spite of the vague shadow he saw there, they were still frank, and open, and honest; she was still as innocent as a child, although as lovely as a woman. Whatever had come to her in those months of absence, deepening her experience of life, it had not brought her any worldly knowledge. The thought that any one could think hardly of her for that secret she was keeping had never dawned upon her inner consciousness. Mr. Rodney knew the world with all its evil ways, and he was a man of strong intellect and strong impulses. He vaguely scented trouble if Aline persisted in her strange course of conduct. Her simple air as she answered his last question almost dismayed him. What a child she was still in spite of her years! “Look at me, Aline,” he said, gravely. She turned her sweet, flower-like face obediently to his, and met his stern inquiring look with the full gaze of her lovely violet eyes. The full white lids and long, curling black lashes raised fully from them, gave them an air of innocent candor and tender appealing. It was not possible that sin or shame could stain the pure white soul looking out at him from those splendid portals of light. “Aline,” he said, abruptly, “I can scarcely credit the sincerity of your refusal to speak. Perhaps you have not counted the cost.” “The cost, papa?” Honest amazement looked out at him from the dark-blue orbs. “The cost,” he repeated, with stern brevity. “But, papa, I do not understand you. I went away because mamma had punished me, and I was vexed and did not mean to stay in all day. And--and--I could not come back when I wished to do so. There were reasons why I could not do so--all my own fault, remember, papa; and so when I come at last--when I come back loving you all more dearly than ever, and quite determined not to be naughty ever again, you look at me so strangely, you talk to me so sternly. You ask me, have I counted the cost? I do not understand you in the least, papa. What do you mean by the cost?” “The cost of your silence,” he said. “Do you not know that it is strange, unnatural? Do you not know that I have a right to know where you have been, my child?” “Of course I know that, papa. And I have always told you everything, haven’t I, papa?--haven’t I, mamma? I have never kept a secret from you in all my life; but I thought that if I chose to keep this one, you would not care--that it would not matter greatly. I do not see how it could matter to any one! But you are angry, papa. Was that what you meant by the _cost_? Shall you lock me in my room again if I refuse to tell?” He stared at her, stupefied. What could he say in the face of such innocence and ignorance?