"Life has many surprises," I observed tentatively.
He looked at me keenly for an instant; then he resumed his indifferent air and continued to play with the paper-knife.
"You will think me altogether a dreamer," remarked Roderick, "to be so impressed by a passing face."
I do not know what impelled me to say then:
"Perhaps there was some special reason. Possibly she may have reminded you of some one whom you once knew."
He started; the paper-knife fell from his hands, and he was long in picking it up. But the flash of his dark eyes in that brief moment recalled Niall. The incident was not without its value. I saw my way clear before me. I should gradually try to revive his interest in the past: to forge a chain which should lead him inevitably back to the castle of his ancestors, to Winifred and to his eccentric but devoted kinsman. And at the same time I might chance to discover his motive for so long neglecting his only child.
When Roderick raised his head again, and replaced the paper-knife, with a hand which trembled somewhat, upon the davenport, he said, in a tone of studied carelessness:
"Don't let us talk of this any more. It does seem very absurd. I am half ashamed of having told you anything about it. And there is the professor going to the piano."
During the music Roderick lay back in his chair, and as he listened to the dreamy, soothing sound of the "Songs without Words," I knew that his mind was running on the sweet child-face which had so impressed him, and on the train of associations which that chance meeting had conjured up. I had no further conversation with him on that occasion, and very soon after I took my leave and went home to ponder over the situation, which I found most interesting. It seemed as if I were holding the thread of a tangled skein, which must sooner or later straighten itself out. I lay awake half the night, picturing to myself Roderick's delight when he should discover that the sweet child-face was that of his own Winifred; and his sorrow, and perhaps remorse, for the past, when he had neglected her. I wondered where and when the disclosure should take place and how it would be brought about. I also resolved to interest Winifred in her father. I could see that she clung much more to the memory of her mother, and seemed to remember Roderick only as the dark gentleman who had got angry with the beautiful lady and slammed the door.
I rose early next morning, for I wanted to go down town. I was going as far as Barclay Street to buy a small statue of the Sacred Heart, which I wished to give Winifred as a present. I was impatient for her coming; for, besides the fact that I was really attached to the child and took a sincere pleasure in her society, I felt a new interest in her since my late conversation with her father.