“And they could n't tell you, it seems!”
“No; they had never heard of him.”
“Then I 'll tell you, girl. Here he stands before you.”
“You! papa—you—dearest pa! Oh, no, no!” cried she, imploringly, as she threw herself on his neck and sobbed bitterly,—“oh no! I 'll not believe it.”
“And why not believe it? What was there in that same story that should prejudice me? There, there, girl, if you give way thus, it will offend me,—ay, Lizzy, offend me.”
She raised her head from his shoulder, dried her eyes, and stood calm and unmoved before him. Her pale face, paler in the bright moonlight, now showed not a trace of passion or emotion.
Davis would have given his right hand at that moment that she had been led into some burst of excitement, some outbreak of passionate feeling, which, in rebuking, might have carried him away from all thoughts about himself; but she was cold and still and silent, like one who has heard some terrible tidings, but yet has summoned up courage for the trial. There was that in her calm, impassive stare that cut him to the very heart; nor could any words have reproached him so bitterly as that steadfast look.
“If you don't know who we are, you know what we are, girl. Is that not so?” cried he, in a thick and passionate tone. “I meant to have told it you fifty times. There was n't a week in the last two years that I did n't, at least, begin a letter to you about it I did more: I cut all the things out of the newspapers and made a collection of them, and intended, some day or other, you should read them. Indeed, it was only because you seemed so happy there that, I spared you. I felt the day must come, though. Know it you must, sooner or later, and better from me than another I mean better for the other; for, by heaven! I 'd have shot him who told you. Why don't you speak to me, girl? What's passing in your mind?”
“I scarcely know,” said she, in a hollow voice. “I don't quite feel sure I am awake!”
“Yes!” cried he, with a terrible oath, “you are awake; it was the past was the dream! When you were the Princess, and every post brought you some fresh means of extravagance,—that was the dream! The world went well with myself in those days. Luck stood to me in whatever I touched. In all I ventured I was sure to come right, as if I had made my bargain with Fortune. But the jade threw me over at last, that she did. From the hour I went in against Hope's stables at Rickworth,—that's two years and eleven days to-day,—I never won a bet! The greenest youngsters from Oxford beat me at my own weapons. I went on selling,—now a farm, now a house, now a brood mare. I sent the money all to you, girl, every guinea of it. What I did myself I did on tick till the September settling at Cottiswoode, and then it was all up. I was ruined!”