Edith could bear no more. Every one of these words was a fresh stab to her remorseful heart--every tone showed to her the depth of love that lay in that father's heart, and revealed to her the suffering that she must have caused. It was too much; and with a deep groan she sank away from his arms upon the floor. She clasped his knees--she did not dare to look up. She wished only to be a suppliant. He himself had prophesied this. His terrible warnings sounded even now in her ears. She had only one thought--to humble herself in the dust before that injured father. Dalton tried to raise her up. “My darling!” he cried, “my child! you must not--you will break my heart!” “Oh,” moaned Edith, “if it is not already broken, how can you ever forgive me?--how can you call me your child?” “My child! my child!” said Dalton. “It was for you that I lived. If it had not been for the thought of you, I should have died long since. It was for your sake that I came home. It is for you only that I live now. There is nothing for me to forgive. Look up at me. Let me see your darling face. Let me hear you say one word--only one word--the word that I have hungered and thirsted to hear. Call me father.” “Father! oh, father! dear father!” burst forth Edith, clinging to him with convulsive energy, and weeping bitterly. “Oh, my darling!” said Dalton, “I was to blame. How could you have borne what I expected you to bear, when I would not give you my confidence? Do not let us speak of forgiveness. You loved your father all the time, and you thought that I was his enemy and yours.” Gradually Edith became calmer, and her calmness was increased by the discovery that her father was painfully weak and exhausted. He had been overwhelmed by the emotions which this interview had called forth. He now sat gazing at her with speechless love, holding her hands in his, but his breath came and went rapidly, and there was a feverish tremulousness in his voice and a flush on his pale cheeks which alarmed her. She tried to lessen his agitation by talking about her own prospects, but Dalton did not wish to. “Not now, daughter,” he said. “I will hear it all some other time. I am too weary, Let me only look at your dear face, and hear you call me by that sweet name, and feel my child's hands in mine. That will be bliss enough for this day. Another time we will speak about the--the situation that you are in.”