“If this poor, wretched, wicked-eyed man is my father—and I should never have doubted it if you had not declared him an impostor before all the town people—then I would be a coward to desert him and seek my happiness in a place where he could not follow me.”
“Even if he is as wicked as his looks indicate?”
“Yes, yes, even if he is wicked. Who can say what caused that wickedness.”
The doctor, fumbling with the halter, stopped and seemed to muse.
“Did you ever see your father’s picture hanging in the old cottage?”
“Yes, I saw it yesterday.”
“Did that have a wicked look?”
“I do not think it had a good look.” This was said very low but it made the doctor start.
“No?” he exclaimed.
“It made me feel a little unpleasant, as if something I could neither understand nor sympathize with had met me in my father’s smile. It made him more remote, and prepared me for the heartless figure of the man who in the next few minutes claimed me as his daughter.”