"No."
"I can tell you something about her, Bingle. She lived for three years as the wife of a man who called himself Hinman. She wasn't his wife and that wasn't his name. She'd been on the stage. She went to live with this man as his wife. She was a good girl up to the time she met this man and fell in love with him. Her home was in the West. Her parents were respected, God-fearing people. They never knew that she—that she took up the life she led with—Hinman. Don't interrupt me, Bingle. If I don't get it out now, I'll never have the courage to try it again. No man was ever in such a desperate plight as I find myself in to-day. I'll come straight to the point. I am the man called Hinman and—this child you've got here with you is—mine."
He might have had the grace to exhibit some sign of shame or compunction, but he did nothing of the kind. He merely looked defiant, as if expecting Mr. Bingle to say something that he could resent.
But Mr. Bingle sank deeper into his chair, his chin buried, his eyes fastened in a sort of horror upon the face of the President of the great bank. He was incapable of uttering a word.
After a little while Force went on: "Blood will tell. All this accounts for the peculiar, inexplicable attraction that Kathleen has held for me. It is like a chapter out of an impossible novel. It—"
"And perhaps it accounts for the antipathy the poor child has for you," said Mr. Bingle, his voice a trifle shrill and uncertain. He did not take his gaze from the face of his visitor. "It now seems quite natural to me."
"Nonsense! The child had no means of knowing or even suspecting that I—"
"She had a birthright, Force. You can't take that away from her. The hatred for her father was born in her. God wouldn't let her hate the wrong man, you know."
Force got up from the chair, tremendously moved all of a sudden. A piteous, pleading look came into his eyes, and his face, once arrogant, was now haggard with despair.
"Bingle, I—I want you to help me. For God's sake, do what you can for me. Put into practice your beautiful Christmas Carol teachings. I—I want her. She must be made to understand that I love her, she must be made to feel that she is everything in the world to me. She looks like her mother. I thought it was fancy on my part, but now I know. Good God, little did I know where fate was going to lead me when I employed those fellows to find the child of Agnes Glenn. Little did I know that it would lead me to your door, Bingle."