‘One moment, Rhoda,’ he said tremblingly; ‘you said, just now, that you had had sorrow enough to make you despair. What was it? Was it connected with me?’
‘You know how you left me,’ she answered, colouring; ‘surely I needn’t remind you of that.’
‘No, no; but I thought, perhaps—I hoped, as you had said nothing of it, that—that—’
‘That God had mercifully buried the proof of your treatment of me, with your other sins, I suppose, Fred,’ replied the girl, scornfully.
‘Your mother wrote me a letter some time ago now, I remember (but later events have put it out of my head), and I sent her a cheque for one hundred pounds, for expenses, but she returned it to me, and said she did not want it. And not having heard since—’
‘You flattered yourself you would never hear again,’ retorted Rhoda. ‘Well, you were right! You never will! Good-bye!’
But he would not let her go.
‘Tell me,’ he urged, ‘tell me everything! Don’t think, because I’m going to be a priest, that I have lost all trace of human feeling. Is the child alive and well? Is it a boy or a girl?’
‘What is the good of my telling you?’ asked Rhoda, dashing away the tears that had risen to her eyes. ‘You’ll never see him, nor will he call you “father.” But since you ask me, he is a boy, and strong and healthy, and I love him dearly. Is that sufficient?’
‘My little son,’ said Frederick, musingly. ‘The only child I shall ever have, and him I have disgraced, God forgive me! Rhoda, you must let me settle some money on this boy before my fortune passes out of my hands. He is mine; you have no right to refuse me.’