“Hang it! I have a great mind to,” he exclaimed.
“Please do, if it is an unkind message. I didn’t think I had any enemies.”
“You have none—at least, I don’t believe you have. It isn’t that. What I have promised to tell you is something about yourself, something you ought to know.”
“Something about myself! Oh, what do you mean? I haven’t been doing anything wrong, have I?”
Captain Mauleverer bit his lip and looked more than half inclined to run away. Then he said, slowly:
“Perhaps I should have said—something about your father.”
“My father!” She gazed at him in astonishment. “But he is dead! He died before I was born.”
“No!”
The answer struck her dumb. She sat still and pressed her hand against her heart. The man replied to her unspoken questions with a grave shake of the head.
“My father is not dead? Oh, Captain Mauleverer, what are you saying? What do you know about him?”