"Yes, I can't tell just why, except that she is so honestly sweet, so ready to give of her best without expecting any return. Do you remember Lady Westmere and her two daughters? They were fine girls and devoted to her. I had not considered it much before, but I understood then what an interest and solace a young girl of the right sort would be. You know I had Gladys Wynne to stay a month with me when you were over to Paris. I had half a mind to engage her as a sort of companion, and she would have been glad enough to come. But I found she had some mean, underhand tricks, and was looking out for her own advantage while she was trying to persuade you that it was yours. And she told little fibs. So I gave up the idea. A maid, you know, is no company, though one must have her abroad. But we couldn't coax or kidnap this girl," and she sighed in the midst of a sad smile.
He still paced up and down. How long since he had thought of that old life. He had always said to himself that he had been a fool to marry Laverne Dallas, but he had taken a good deal of satisfaction then in "cutting out" Jason Chadsey. What fools young fellows were!
"Agnes," he began, "before I married you I did not tell you my whole story. I said I had lost my wife and child, that ill luck had dragged me through those early years. She had another lover, Jason Chadsey, a seafaring man, of whom she had not heard in a long time, when she married me. Some years later I was at a low ebb and away, trying to make money for them as well as myself. When I had a little success I went back. She was dead and buried. Chadsey had come back, it seems, and taken the child, since there were no near relatives to say him nay. At Boston I lost trace of them."
"Oh, David!" She sprang up and flung both arms about him. "You don't think—this Laverne—why, what if she should be yours!"
"She came here late in '51. Her mother died early in the spring before. She must have been about eight. Why, it's quite a romance for this prosaic world."
"If you are her father, you have the best right. Oh, David, I should love her and be so good to her. She should have everything, and I would be so happy. Oh, you must see to-morrow."
There was a hysterical catch in her voice, and a great throb at her heart.
"There, don't get into a fit. Why, I didn't suppose you could care so much. Yes, I know you will be good to her. Chadsey may kick about giving her up, but I doubt if he took any steps toward legal adoption. Oh, I think there will not be any real trouble unless she will not come."
"But she ought to have some regard for her father! And he isn't really her uncle or guardian. Why, it wouldn't be quite the thing for her to travel round the world with him."
They talked it over until their plans seemed most reasonable. And then they wondered at the strangeness of it. He had no real compunctions of conscience about the past, though of course he would have accepted the responsibility of his daughter if he could have found her. He had a practical business way of looking at matters. And while Agnes Westbury lay awake, and had vague visions, dropping now and then into snatches of dreams, he slept soundly and awoke with a resolve to settle the question with just the same purpose as if he had resolved to buy his wife thousands of dollars' worth of jewels.