"Why? oh, why!" at last broke from her lips.
"Because," said the old man, drawing himself up, and speaking with a hoarse effort; "because, God forgive me, you are my own daughter!"
She was looking in his face. A sob broke upon her pale lips—the strength left her limbs—and she fell down before him, shrouding her agony with both hands.
CHAPTER XXIX.
FATHER AND DAUGHTER.
General Harrington had no power to comfort the poor creature at his feet. More deeply moved than he had been for years, the strangeness of his own feelings paralyzed his action. But the hand to which Lina clung grew cold in her grasp, and over his face stole an expression of sadness, the more touching because so foreign to its usual apathy.
"Father—oh, my heart breaks with the word—are you indeed my father?" cried Lina, lifting her pale face upward and sweeping her hair back with a desperate motion of the hand.
"Poor child—poor child!" muttered the old man compassionately.
"What can I do? what shall I do? It will kill me! It will kill us both. Oh, Ralph, Ralph, if I had but died yesterday!" cried the poor girl, attempting to rise, but falling back again with a fresh burst of grief.
The old man stood gazing to harden his heart—striving to compose the unusual tremor of his nerves, but all in vain. Sorrow, regret, and something almost like remorse smote him to the soul, for he had once been a man of strong passions, and the ice of his selfishness again broken up, the turbid waters rose and swelled in his bosom, with a power that all the force of habit could not resist. He bent down and lifted the girl from his feet, trembling slightly, and with a touch of pity in his voice.