“I don’t shrink from you, father,” she said in a low voice.
Gideon’s hand dropped from her shoulder, and the frown gave place to a sad expression. “Has the time I looked forward to with fear and dread come at last?” he murmured, inaudibly, and he paced to and fro again, as if endeavoring to arrive at some decision.
Una watched him with dreamy, questioning eyes, in which shone a tender mournfulness. Why were all men wicked? Why was this one man, with the handsome face and the musical voice, more wicked than the rest? What was it that her father knew that should make him hate the youth so? These were the questions that haunted her as she waited silent and motionless.
At last, with a wave of the hand, as if he were putting some decision on one side, Gideon Rolfe turned to her and motioned her to the window-seat. “Una,” he said, “last night you were wondering why your lot should be different from that of other girls; you were wondering why I have kept you here in Warden, and out of the world. It is so, is it not?”
She did not answer in words, but her eyes said “yes,” plainly.
Gideon Rolfe sighed, and passed his hand over his brow; it was a hand hardened by toil, but it was not the hand of a peasant, any more than was his tone or his words those of one.
“Una, I have foreseen this question; I have been expecting it, and I had resolved that when it came I would answer it. But,” and his lips twitched, “I cannot do it—I cannot,” and his brow contracted as if he were suffering some great, mental anguish. “For my sake, do not press me. In time to come, sooner or later, you must know the secret of your life, you must learn why and wherefore your whole life has been spent in seclusion; you have guessed that there is some mystery, some story—there is. It must remain a mystery still. For your own sake I dare not draw aside the veil which conceals; for your own sake my lips are for the present sealed. Child, can you tell me that, secluded and lonely as your life has been, it has been an unhappy one?”
“Father!” she murmured, and her eyes filled slowly.
“God forgive me if it has been!” he said, sadly. “I have striven to make it a happy one.”
Silently she rose and laid her hand upon his arm and put up her lips to kiss him, but with a gentle gesture he put her away from him.