"Have you never had any one care for you, daddy?" she asked pityingly.
"Don't ask me, child. I mustn't look back--I daren't look back. But it seems to me, Lizzie, that I never knew how dreadful a lonely life was until you came and showed me the misery of it. I cannot leave you now, Lizzie; I should become I am frightened to think what."
His voice, his hands, his whole body trembled as he pleaded for companionship, for protection from his torturing fancies. She was his shelter, and he clung to her. His manhood had been like a ship tossed amidst storms, overhung by dark clouds, battered and bruised by sunken reefs. Suddenly a rift of light appeared, and the old worn ship floated into peaceful waters, and lay there with an almost painful sense of rest upon it--painful because of the fear that the light might vanish as suddenly as it had appeared, and the storm break again.
"What is it you want me to do, daddy?"
"To come and live with me, my dear, if I am fortunate enough to get this house, where there will be rest; to share my home, as my daughter."
"As your daughter!" (Very, very softly spoken, musingly, wonderingly. The turning over of a new leaf, indeed, for her who had never known a father's love.) "Does he know of this--your friend?"
"It was he who suggested it when I spoke of you. He proposed it for my sake."
"It is kind of him; he must have a noble nature. But I don't know, daddy, I don't know!"
"Don't know what, my dear?"
"Whether you would be pleased with me--whether you would be as fond of me as you are now. Ah, you smile, but you might be mistaken in me. I like to have my own way, and I am ill-tempered when I don't. Then, you know, Some One must come and see me."