"It is useless and foolish to take any misfortune in this manner, child."
"Child!" Lina shuddered at the word. She shrunk away from his hand, arose without his help, and staggered backward with a feeling of unutterable repulsion.
He saw the quiver of pain in her features, and his soul hardened once more. She had not met the feeling of tenderness, so new, and, for the moment, so exquisite to himself, and it withered away like a hot-house blossom.
"This is a new and strange relation to us both," he said, seating himself, and regarding her gravely. "Of course it involves many important and painful questions. Up to this day you have been to Mrs. Harrington and myself a daughter in everything but the name!"
Lina wrung her hands, wildly moaning: "That name! Oh, heavens! how can I bear that name unless he should have given it to me. Now, now—just as it sounded so sweet, it separates us for ever. This unholy name of child!"
General Harrington moved in his chair with a gesture of annoyance, but Lina, growing still more impassioned, came toward him, wringing her small hands impetuously.
"You are my father—God forgive you! But there is yet another to curse or bless me with her claims—where and whom is my mother? Is Mrs. Harrington indeed the parent she has always seemed to me?"
The General waved his hand with a dissenting gesture.
"Do not question me upon a subject that must be painful to us both. This is no time to answer you."
"No time, when you uproot every hope of my life and present a future black with improbable things? Up to this day, that dear lady was enough. I had no desire to ask about father or mother. They told me I was an orphan's destiny, and overlooked by all the world, if the dear ones under this roof only loved me. I had no other place on earth, and now, what am I?—an impostor, cast upon the charity of the dear lady my birth has wronged."