"Yes, I know. I see that. If I should be sorry by-and-by—if I should be ashamed. And I can't be sure. Things look so different at different times. Just now, all I seem to care for is to have him—Dick! And I know you will like him. He and you will just suit! Daddy—ought I to give him up?" Tears again filled her eyes. "Must I?"
The Rector never could bear to see his child in distress; but he realised all that was involved in the decision; and he knew now that the thing could not be. "Don't, my dear!" he entreated.
She knelt down, and laid her face against his knee.
"In any case, we should have to know about his father," Mr. Winton observed, looking down with grieved eyes upon the mass of soft dusky hair. "I do not understand this mystery."
"Dick doesn't either. It is queer, isn't it? But Mr. Stirling seems to know more than most people. You might ask him. He would tell you, daddy. I can't think why he should have made Dick spell his name differently from his mother and sisters. But Dick's is the right spelling, and Mrs. Morris's is the wrong. I don't understand how it comes to be Mr. Stirling's business at all; only, it was he who paid for Dick's schooling and college. So I suppose it has been real kindness, all through."
The rugged face, listening intently, had grown stern.
"Sometimes it seems as if such things didn't matter at all,—not in the very least. Other times—I almost feel as if I couldn't stand his people—Jane and his mother! But still—all that is not new to me. Ought I to give him up?"
"Yes!"—decisively.
She had not expected this; and her face paled. "It won't do, child!"
"I wish he had nobody belonging to him," she broke out passionately.