He might have read the truth—the whole truth—in that urgent pleading, but he was shut away from light, and sceptical of any love for him abiding anywhere throughout the world.
"If he wished it, Mattie—stay. If your father says not No to this, why, stay until you tire of me, and the utter wretchedness of such a life as mine."
"Why utterly wretched?"
"I don't know—don't ask again."
"Others have been afflicted like you before, sir, and borne their heavy burden well."
"Why do you 'sir' me? That's new."
"I called your father sir,—you take your father's place," said Mattie, hastily.
"A strange reason—I wonder if it's true."
Mattie coloured, but he could not see her blushes, and whether true or false, mattered little to him then. A new suspicion seized him after awhile, when he had thought more deeply of Mattie's presence there.
"If this is a new trick of your father's to preach to me through you, I warn you, Mattie."