"Mr. Goodchild, my errand may seem a strange one, but I have had a detailed account given me of his blackguardly behaviour to you and your daughter."
"But what has that to do with you?" he asked, excitedly.
"Stay, Mr. Goodchild. I will tell you all. My friend Morris and I are on his tracks to revenge a cruel wrong he did." And Hal thereupon told him the whole story from the beginning. "Now, sir, I come to offer you my assistance to shew him to your daughter in his true light."
"But she's gone," he burst out.
"Where?" cried Hal, "not with him?"
"God knows, I don't," and the poor old fellow hid his face in his hands, and sobbed.
"You must tell me all, sir. Tell me all: there is no time to be lost," said Hal, excitedly.
"There's not much to tell, sir. He will be able to add another notch to his stick, for he has literally broken my heart. I never have discussed my private affairs with anyone, sir, but I will tell you my story, for I feel you are to be trusted.
"She is my only child. I loved her mother dearly for sixteen years, and all that time it was our great sorrow that we were childless, and I fervently thanked God on the day she told me our hopes were to be realized. Had I known the trouble that child was to cost me, I would have been less fervent. A little girl was born to us, and a week later she was motherless."
"Go on," said Hal, encouragingly, as Goody stopped and hesitated.