But if this was indeed her first intention she must have soon changed her mind. Possibly the friendly reassuring smile on his eager face influenced her; then again she may have been braver than he had ever imagined could be the case; and last of all perhaps she knew more about her past than it had entered his mind to imagine.
“Yes, boy, if you promise not to come any nearer to me than you are now, I will hear what you want to say,” she replied, in a voice that quivered with nervousness, fear, and perhaps anxiety. “But how could you ever find your way over here, when he told me no living person knew of that trail under the mud.”
“There was one man who knew about it,” Thad went on to say, softly, thinking it wise to approach the wonderful subject that he wanted to speak about by degrees, and first of all satisfy her girlish curiosity. “But first of all, tell me if you believe the man you are with is your own father?”
“He says he is, but somehow I do not believe him,” she replied, drawing a long breath, while her eyes opened wider than before, as though hopes that had lain half dormant in her heart for some time, once more flashed into life. “At the convent school the sisters often talked about him, and they could not believe he was my father. He gave his name as Allan; but once when he came to see me an empty envelope fell from his coat pocket, and I saw that it was addressed to Felix Jasper; so ever since I’ve believed that must mean him.”
“And you guessed what was true,” said Thad, quickly, pleased beyond measure at what success had already come to him in his suddenly arranged plans; “his right name is Felix Jasper. Years ago he used to be in charge of my mother’s property, just after my father died; but he took advantage of her inexperience to defraud her and was discharged, but not prosecuted. Instead of being grateful he seemed to lie awake nights trying to think up something dreadful, through which he might have revenge for what he considered his wrongs. It is an old story, but happens now and then, just as it used to do centuries ago. My little baby sister disappeared most mysteriously, and was never found, though they hunted everywhere. Jasper was careful not to give the least clue; but my mother believed until she died that he was to blame. And now, many years afterwards, word reached my uncle and guardian that this same Felix Jasper was seen coming into this swamp, having a girl in his company who seemed to be just about as old as my little sister Pauline must have been if she were alive. And I have come down here to find out if it might be true. Now you know why I asked you not to call out! You do not love that man, I hope?”
“I have hardly seen him more than four or five times in as many years, until he came two weeks ago, and told me I would have to leave the convent school, and go with him, because he had to live abroad. And then we came here to this queer spot, and he has acted so strangely all the while, as though he feared some one might be meaning to do him an injury. Ever so many times a day I have seen him examining a terrible pistol he carries in his pocket. Is it you he is afraid of, boy?”
“No, I don’t think it is,” replied Thad; “you see he is a thief, and has robbed a wealthy planter who employed him; so that he is afraid the sheriff and his posse will find him. And they are here close by, meaning to arrest him; so that you must not go back there to that shack, for it would be too dangerous. But if you believe that he could not be your real father, have you not sometimes tried to picture who was, and what your right name might be?”
“Yes, oh! yes, I have, many, many times,” she went on to say, breathlessly, so that Thad was emboldened to take a step toward her, and follow it up with another. “And then there was that day when the sisters showed me the clothes that were on me when he brought me there as a baby, saying that my mother had died, and he had to go abroad on a very important mission. I shall never forget that there were three letters embroidered on one of the garments; and oh! how often I used to dream that the day might come when I could know whether my name were really Mary Allen, or something else that those initials stood for.”
“Listen,” said Thad, his very heart seeming to stop beating, because everything might depend on what answer she would make to the question he meant to ask her now; “tell me, were those three letters P. C. B?”
“Oh! you have said them just as I saw them!” she exclaimed, in sudden awe, not unmixed with ecstacy; and Thad breathed freely again, while his face lighted up with a joy that could no longer be denied.