“I have said that I saw no likeness in him to the man I once knew. Of course my judgment was hurried, our interview was short and I was laboring under the shock of his appearance. But if everybody else in town recognizes him as Ephraim Earle, I must needs think my opinion was warped by my surprise and the indignation I felt at what I considered a gross piece of presumption.”
“Then you do not know,” quoth poor Polly, her head sinking lower and lower on her breast.
“No,” cried the doctor, turning shortly at the word and advancing once more toward the buggy.
But at this move she sprang forward and sought again to detain him.
“But you will not go and leave me in this dreadful uncertainty,” she pleaded. “You will stay and have another talk with this man and satisfy yourself and me that he is indeed my father.”
But the stern line into which the doctor’s lip settled, assured her that in this regard he was not to be moved; and frightened, overawed by the prospect before her, she turned to Clarke and cried:
“Take me home, take me back to your mother; she is the only person who can give me any comfort.”
The doctor who was slowly proceeding to his horse’s head, looked back.
“Then you don’t like my advice,” he smiled.
She stared, remembered what he had said and answered indignantly: