"No! And you have no idea," he added, smiling sadly, "how after thirty years those words of yours-'that you did not remember me'—hurt me. Well, there you are. Such as I am I have been absolutely faithful to my boyish love for you."
So many different feelings were struggling in her mind that her face was tremulous with varied fleeting expressions. Her beautiful deep eyes were wet, and her lips looked fuller and red, more like the lips of a girl than they had done for years.
"When I met her at Torquay," he went on, looking away from her with delicacy, "I had no idea she was your daughter. I had never even heard your married name, but something in her, particularly a trick she has with her hands, and then the shape of her ears, always recalled you, and I encouraged myself, deliberately encouraged myself, to fall in love with her. I very nearly succeeded too," he added smiling. "Who could not? Such a charming child."
There was a little pause. It had begun to rain again and the soft pattering sound on the windows filled the air.
"Then I came here and saw you. You, as the years had made you—as the years of Ferdinand Walbridge had made you," he added, with sudden firmness.
She looked up still with the odd air of youth in her face. "Poor Ferdie," she murmured, "he never meant it, you know."
"They never do," he answered dryly. "The very worst husbands are those who did not mean it."
"Well, then," he went on, after a moment, "I had a good deal of thinking, one way and another, and it struck me that if I could make her happy it would make you happy as well. And I tried."
"Oh, you have, you have; you have been so good," she interrupted, clasping her hands. "It's only that she is not very well."
He shrugged his shoulders. "Surely you must see," he asked slowly, "what is the matter with her?"